Joseph Gulston (collector)

The marriage was not acknowledged for many years, principally owing to the elder Joseph Gulston's dread of his sister, and for some time the four children were brought up in the strictest concealment.

Upon his father's death in 1766, Joseph, who had latterly been educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated 18 February 1763, found himself in possession of £250,000 in the funds, an estate in Hertfordshire worth £1,500 a year, Ealing Grove, Middlesex, and a house in Soho Square.

The sale lasted forty days (from 16 January to 15 March 1786), but produced only £7,000, and the unfortunate possessor, overwhelmed with family cares and pecuniary difficulties, died in Bryanston Street, London, on 16 July 1786, and was buried in Ealing Church.

Gulston was a most amiable man, whose faults were in great measure due to his physical constitution and defective education at the most susceptible period of his life.

He was partly engaged for several years in the preparation of a biographical dictionary of the foreigners who have visited England; the manuscript was purchased by a bookseller after his death, but no use seems to have been made of it.

Gulston married Elizabeth Bridgetta, second daughter of Sir Thomas Stepney, Bt., a woman as extravagant as himself celebrated for her beauty and accomplishments, and as the inventor of plated harness.