A. F. Basset Hull was the son of Margaret Tremlett and Hugh Munro Hull, coroner and later clerk of the House of Assembly in Tasmania. Hull worked in the registry of the Tasmanian Supreme Court from 1883-1889 and sang and acted in plays throughout the 1880s, while he was secretary and treasurer of the Orpheus Club. He married Laura Blanche Nisbet in April 1891 and the couple had a son.
After the death of his wife in 1893, Hull moved to Sydney where he worked at the General Post Office, and from 1900, the Department of Public Works. In March 1899, Bertha Cligny de Boissac sued Hull for breach of promise of marriage. Unable to pay the damages, he was declared bankrupt.
In 1902 Hull married widow Caroline Ann Lloyd, and was discharged from bankruptcy soon afterwards. After travelling in Europe, he worked in the Department of Mines from 1903 until his retirement in 1921. Divorced in 1912, Hull married Diana Furley in 1926.
Hull wrote fiction, poetry, and short stories. He held international reputations in ornithology, natural history and philately, and also published works in these areas including The Stamps of Tasmania (1990). In 1936, Hull was awarded an M.B.E. for his services to the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, the Australian Museum and other aspects of the natural sciences.
