The Bulkeley family of the Baron Hill estate, Beaumaris were originally from Cheshire and settled in Anglesey before 1450.
Sir Richard Williams Bulkeley (1862-1942), 12th Baronet, was Lord Lieutenant of Anglesey and a commander in the Royal Anglesey Militia. In 1885 he married Lady Magdalen Yorke, (born 1865), daughter of Charles, 5th Earl of Hardwicke. They had four children, Richard Gerard Wellesley (born 1888), Generis Alma Windham (born 1889), Aeira Helen (born 1891) and Siriol Penelope Diana (born 1902).
Commodore SIR Richard Henry Williams-Bulkeley, Twelfth Baronet, K.C.B., V.D., R.N.R. (4 December, 1862 – 7 July, 1942) was an honorary officer of the Royal Naval Reserve during the First World War.
He was gazetted an Ordinary Member of the Second Class, or Knight Commander, of the Civil Division of the Order of the Bath (KCB) on 2 January, 1922.
Sir Richard, known as 'Tiggy' was elected RYS Commodore in 1927 at the age of 65 A Commodore in the RNVR with a Master's Certificate, he had already owned a dozen yachts, including Britannia, He was a tall, commanding figure with a gift for diplomacy of a stylish and engaging kind
Stories about him:
1 As he strolled along the High Street at Beaumaris one day some trippers from Lancashire remarked "Look at 'im! You might think he owned the bloody place", to which Sir Richard calmly replied "As a matter of fact I do" causing great delight to the trippers.
2. England's first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay Macdonald, visited the Squadron in 1927. Sir Richard saw him approaching from Portsmouth in the C-in-C's barge, and quickly dived into the hall to exchange his yachting cap for a bowler hat before greeting his visitor. Some thought that was a gesture of mild mockery by a staunch Tory, but it seems more likely it was an attempt to put the bowler-hatted PM at ease.
3. Sir Richard was the Commodore during the incident illustrated by H M Bateman in "The Man Who Bathed from the Steps of the Royal Yacht Squadron".The bather was the octogenarian Sir Claud Champion de Crespigny (1847-1935; RYS 1929-35) - boxer, big game hunter, steeplechaser,all-year-round swimmer, balloonist and crack shot, a fanatical Victorian sportsman who believed that all life's problems could be solved by a rigorous habit of hard exercise. He was not a man to be contradiced, yet swimming from the Squadron steps was just not done. The Commodore's response to those who objected was to improvise a new rule that Members may bathe from the Squadron steps provided they are over the age of eighty.
His portrait is displayed in the Members Dining Room.