HULL, ARTHUR FRANCIS BASSET (1862-1945), public servant, philatelist and naturalist, was born on 10 October 1862 at O’Brien’s Bridge, Hobart Town, son of Hugh Munro Hull, coroner and later clerk of the House of Assembly, and his wife Margaret Basset, née Tremlett. Educated at the High School, Hobart, he was lamed by infantile paralysis at 15 and had to wear a surgical boot and use a walking-stick for the rest of his life.
From his boyhood Hull collected stamps and was an honorary fellow of the (Royal) Philatelic Society, London, from 1887. He published Stamps of Tasmania (London, 1890), The Postage Stamps … of New South Wales (London, 1911) and The Postage Stamps … of Queensland (1930). He contributed many articles on stamps, envelopes, wrappers, postcards and coins to journals, and edited the Australian Philatelist. In his later years he collected and annotated revenue stamps. He received many philatelic honours.
In 1883-89 Hull was a clerk in the registry of the Tasmanian Supreme Court. Secretary and treasurer of the Orpheus Club in the 1880s, he performed as a tenor and in plays; he worshipped and sang at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. He also tried his hand at short stories and verse in “A Strange Experience” (1888).
At the Congregational Church, New Town, he married Laura Blanche Nisbet on 29 April 1891; she bore a son and died in 1893. Hull moved to Sydney and on 12 October 1892 became a clerk in the General Post Office. On 1 July 1900 he transferred to the Department of Public Works as secretary to the labour commissioners. Sued for breach of promise of marriage by Bertha Cligny de Boissac in March 1899, Hull had been unable to pay £500 damages and was forced into bankruptcy.
At Annandale on 15 January 1902 he married a 53-year-old widow Caroline Ann Lloyd, née Baker. He was discharged from bankruptcy in March and later visited Britain and Europe. On his return he joined the Department of Mines as a clerk in January 1903; he retired in 1921.
More about Hull’s achievements in Natural history at the Australian Biographical Dictionary online.
