Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cullum, Thomas Gery
CULLUM, Sir THOMAS GERY (1741–1831), Bath king-at-arms, second son of Sir John Cullum of Hardwick, Suffolk, fifth baronet, by his second wife, Susanna, daughter of Sir Thomas Gery, was born on 30 Nov. 1741 at Hardwick House, and baptised on 5 Jan. 1741–2 at St. Mary's, Bury St. Edmunds. He was educated at the Charterhouse, and being intended for the medical profession, he attended the lectures of William and John Hunter, and was admitted a member of the Corporation of Surgeons on 7 May 1778, and in 1800 was enrolled a member of the college. He practised with distinction as a surgeon at Bury St. Edmunds, of which town he became alderman. He was made Bath king-at-arms 8 Nov. 1771, an office which he held until 1800, when he was succeeded by his second son, John Palmer Cullum. He married Mary, daughter of Robert Hanson of Normanton, Yorkshire, and heiress of her brother, Sir Lovett Hanson, chamberlain to the Duke of Modena. In 1774 he printed privately ‘Floræ Anglicæ Specimen imperfectum et ineditum,’ in 104 pages, 8vo, the arrangement being based on the Linnæan system, which work he probably discontinued owing to the publications of his friend, Sir J. E. Smith, who dedicated his ‘English Flora’ in 1824 to Cullum in highly flattering terms. He succeeded his brother Sir John [q. v.] as seventh baronet in 1785. In 1813 he edited a second edition of his brother's ‘History and Antiquities of Hawsted and Hardwick.’ He was a fellow of the Royal and Linnean Societies and of the Society of Antiquaries, and a constant attendant at their meetings; the love of botany evinced by him and by his brother was commemorated by the genus Cullumia in the ‘Hortus Kewensis.’ He died on 8 Sept. 1831, and was buried at Hawsted. Many of his antiquarian and scientific note-books are preserved at Hardwick House. His eldest son, Sir Thomas Gery Cullum, eighth baronet, was also distinguished as a botanist.
[Gage's History of Suffolk, Thingoe Hundred; Gent. Mag. 1831, ci. 270; family papers, &c., in the possession of G. Milner Gibson-Cullum, F.S.A., at Hardwick House, Bury St. Edmunds.]