Marriage, Death and Burial

The Ancient Unitarian Chapel, Toxteth Park

On 16 July 1869 at the above chapel John married Georgiana Bolton, only daughter of Mr. Robert Lewin Bolton, merchant of Liverpool and grand-daughter of the late Mr. Thomas Bolton who was Mayor of Liverpool in 1840. A daughter Georgiana Theodosis was born in December 1870.

For some time in the early 1870s he had suffered from a chest complaint which necessitated his removal from England to a warmer climate during the severity of the winter. Reports show that he lived in Algiers, Nice and other Mediterranean resorts during these periods. He finally succumbed to his complaint on 6 January 1875 when he died of Emphysema of lungs and Bronchitis. He is buried in Grave G493 in Toxteth Park cemetery, Liverpool.

The Liverpool Mercury reported his funeral in their edition of 12 January 1875:

FUNERAL OF THE LATE MR. JOHN HULLEY
The funeral of the late Mr. John Hulley, the "gymnasiarch," took place yesterday
morning at the Smithdown-lane cemetery, the body being conveyed in a hearse drawn
by four horses, and followed by two mourning coaches and the private carriage of Mr.
Aaron Brown. Amongst those present at the grave were Colonel Faulkner, Mr.
Councillor Thomas Avison, Mr. Aaron Brown, Mr. Miller, Mr. Shrapnell, manager of the
Gymnasium in Myrtle-street, &c. The officiating minister was the Rev. Hugh Stowell
Brown, Baptist minister, who, in the course of some remarks which he delivered in the
chapel, referred to the fact that Mr. Hulley for several years had escaped death by going
to reside during the winter in warmer climates than ours, but the late severe weather
had proved fatal to him as it had to many more. In a measure they were indebted to
Mr. Hulley for the interest that had been taken in athletic exercises, and for the
establishment of the institution in Myrtle-street, of which he was the first manager. He
(Mr. Brown) believed that the institute had been productive of very great benefit to the
young people of the town, for not only did those exercises benefit the pupils in bodily
health, but they led to the cultivation of manly habits, of temperance, and of self-denial,
and so acted upon the moral character as well as the physical frame. St. Paul had
made excellent use of the exercises of the gymnasium as illustrative of the spiritual
efforts that must distinguish the Christian life.
(Mr. Hugh Stowell Brown was minister of Myrtle Street Chapel)