Having finished his apprenticeship, he got a job as a clerk in the Bath Savings Bank, then later joined his father's business in that city.
On 31 July 1860, Gully and his family left New Plymouth on the Airedale for the city of Nelson, where he spent the rest of his life.
[2] He became the part-time drawing master at Nelson College, but because he was self-taught and not schooled in classical style he was not popular with the principal.
Gully continued to teach informally - one of his students was Frances Fletcher, whose works are now held in the Alexander Turnbull Library.
[3][4] Eventually in 1863, with assistance of his friend, politician and amateur painter James Crowe Richmond (whom he had met while in New Plymouth), Gully was appointed as a full-time draughtsman at the Nelson provincial survey office.
Painting almost entirely in watercolour, Gully often went on sketching trips and filled sketch-books with careful pencil studies and numerous quick-wash drawings both in colour and sepia.
In 1889, a year after his death, the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition (1889) in Dunedin featured a special showing of his works.
Karl Sim, also known as Carl Feoder Goldie (6 December 1923 – 21 October 2013) was a New Zealand art forger.