Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cullum, Dudley
CULLUM, Sir DUDLEY, third baronet (1657–1720), horticultural writer, of Hawsted and Hardwick, Suffolk, son of Sir Thomas Cullum, second baronet, by Dudley, daughter of Sir Henry North of Mildenhall, and grandson of Sir Thomas Cullum [q. v.], was born and baptised at Wickhambrook, Suffolk, on 17 Sept. 1657. He received his education first at Bury school, and then went to St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1675. He succeeded his father in 1680, and on 8 Sept. 1681 married at Berkeley House Anne, daughter of John, lord Berkeley of Stratton. While at Cambridge he suffered from small-pox. In 1684 a dispute arose as to 1,000l. of dowry, which was compromised by his mother-in-law, Lady Berkeley, depositing the said sum in the hands of a third party until the law courts should decide upon the matter.
He was much devoted to his garden at Hawsted, where he cultivated most of the exotics then known to English gardeners, and he speaks of his orange-trees as thriving in an especial manner. He corresponded with Evelyn, who acted as his adviser in gardening matters. The greenhouse was of exceptional size, and the experiments therein made were related in a paper printed in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ xviii. (1694), 191 Abr. iii. 659. A list of the plants contained in the greenhouse at the time of his death is among the papers preserved at Hardwick House.
He served as high sheriff in 1690, and afterwards was elected member of parliament in 1702, but was unsuccessful in another contest in 1705. Lady Cullum died in 1709, and was buried at Hawsted, and on 12 June 1710 Cullum married as second wife his relative, Anne, daughter of James and Dorothy Wicks of Bury St. Edmunds. He died on 16 Sept. 1720 without issue, and was buried at Hawsted. His widow remarried the Rev. John Fulham, archdeacon of Llandaff, and, dying on 22 Jan. 1737, was buried with her first husband at Hawsted. There are three portraits of Cullum at Hardwick House, two being miniatures.
Brown's genus Cullumia in Aiton's ‘Hort. Kew.’ (2nd ed.), v. 137, was probably named after his contemporary Sir Thomas Gery Cullum.
[Cullum's History of Hawsted, 2nd ed. 1813, pp. 185–90; Burke's Visitations, 2nd ser. ii. 89; Johnson's Eng. Gard. p. 122; family papers belonging to G. Milner Gibson-Cullum, F.S.A., at Hardwick, Bury St. Edmunds.]