Details of Bulkeley’s early life are unclear; he may have been an officer in the British Dragoon Guards and later may have served as king’s messenger at Whitehall. In 1749 he traveled to Nova Scotia with the governor, Edward Cornwallis, as his assistant. In 1757 Bulkeley became provincial secretary, a post that he held under 13 successive governors. He became editor of the Royal Gazette in 1758. The following year he was appointed a member of the Executive Council, and he became its clerk in 1763. For 25 years, from 1775, he served as judge of the Court of Admiralty. Bulkeley was also brigadier general of the provincial militia, and in the period November 1791–May 1792 he served as acting governor of Nova Scotia.