Researching Henry Sulley

Sulley was born to English parents in Brooklyn, Long Island, USA, 30 January 1845, but relocated back to Nottingham when still young.

As an architect, Sulley is noted for several buildings in Nottingham, among them 2 Hamilton Road, 'a fine Victorian dwelling' designed for James White the lace manufacturer in 1883.

Although he had no formal training in archaeology, Sulley's background in architecture allowed him to develop various ideas about Solomon's Temple and the City of David. His primary area of activity was in writing concerning the temples in Jerusalem: Solomon's Temple, Herod's Temple and Ezekiel's Temple. In 1929 Sulley was the first to propose that the watercourse of Siloam tunnel was following a natural crack, a theory developed by Ruth Amiran (1968), and Dan Gill (1994).

Sulley had been baptised as a Christadelphian in October 1871 at the age of 26 following lectures by Robert Roberts and reading Elpis Israel. When he was only 28 the bulk of the Nottingham Ecclesia left following Edward Turney into the Nazarene Fellowship for six years until Turney's death in 1879, after which most of those who had left returned.

As a Christadelphian Sulley toured Australia, New Zealand, America and Canada, showing his large illustrated architectural designs for Ezekiel's temple, in lecture halls and museums, typically over two or three nights. These public lectures followed a regular pattern: archaeology, architecture, prophecy, and then preaching. On his journeys he would write articles for publication in England giving impressions on the buildings he saw: for example, noting that the Washington Monument was a marvel, but that the corner-towers of Ezekiel's temple would be two-and-a-half times taller. During the period from 1898 onwards he was a regular assistant to the second editor of The Christadelphian, Charles Curwen Walker.