A half-length portrait to the right showing Bullen in his rear-admiral’s uniform of the 1843–47 pattern, wearing the KCB and KCH and also a gold Trafalgar medal.
Charles Bullen entered the Navy on 16 February 1779 in the ‘Europe’, flagship of Vice-Admiral Arbuthnot on the North American station. At the end of the American War he served in the Mediterranean and was promoted lieutenant on 9 August 1791. He was lieutenant in the ‘Ramillies’ at the Battle of the Glorious First of June 1794. Bullen was later first lieutenant of the ‘Monmouth’ during the Nore mutiny. He was promoted commander on 2 January 1798.
Bullen commanded the sloop ‘Wasp’ off the west coast of Africa in 1801 and was promoted captain on 29 April the following year. He was appointed flag captain to Lord Northesk in the ‘Britannia’ in 1804, seeing action at Trafalgar. Between 1807 and 1811, he commanded frigates in the Mediterranean; and from 1814 to 1817 he was on the North American station in command of the 50-gun ‘Akbar’. He was then commodore on the west coast of Africa, 1824–27, in the 40-gun 'Maidstone' before being appointed superintendent of Pembroke dockyard and commander of the yacht ‘Royal Sovereign’. He held these posts until promoted rear-admiral on 10 January 1837. He rose by seniority to vice-admiral on 9 November 1846 and to admiral on 30 July 1852.