William Lanman Bull Sr. (August 23, 1844 – January 2, 1914) was an American banker who served as president of the New York Stock Exchange.
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Early life
Bull was born on August 23, 1844, in New York City. He was the seventh child and youngest son of Frederic Bull and Mary Huntington (née Lanman) Bull. Among his siblings were Elizabeth Atwater Bull (wife of merchant Augustus Oscar van Lennep), Frederic Bull, and Anna Chester Bull.
His paternal grandparents were Elizabeth (née Atwater) Bull and Jireh Bull (a descendant of Rhode Island Governor Henry Bull) and his maternal grandparents were Peter Lanman and Abigail (née Trumbull) Lanman (a sister of U.S. Representative and Connecticut governor Joseph Trumbull). Through his mother, he was a first cousin of scholar Charles Rockwell Lanman.
After receiving a preparatory education, he studied at the College of the City of New York, where he graduated in 1864.
Career
After graduation, Bull began his business career by joining Edward Sweet & Co., a banking house founded in 1854 (with offices at the southwest corner of Wall and Broad Street) where his brother-in-law was the senior partner. In 1867, he became a partner, a position he held uninterruptedly for over forty-five years. The prominent firm became known as "a Vanderbilt and Rockefeller house" and E. H. Harriman did business for the firm when he was a broker. Bull served as a director of several companies, including the Northern Pacific Railway, the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway, the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway, and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.