Sir Walter Bullivant Sir Walter Bullivant Sir Walter Bullivant is a fictional character created by the Scottish thriller writer John Buchan for his series of novels featuring the spy Richard Hannay. He plays small but significant roles in both "The Thirty-Nine Steps" and "Greenmantle". Sir Walter is a senior mandarin at the Foreign Office in the years leading up to World War I. He is the archetypal spymaster — gruff, acutely conscious of his duty, yet thoughtful and kindly towards those he sends into peril. In "Greenmantle", he recruits Hannay to perform a dangerous mission in the East as the Great Game heats
Hannay baronets of Girthon, Kirkcudbright. m. 4 Nov. 1760, Mary, da. of Robert Meade, MD, of Teddington, Mdx., 5s. 4da. suc. e. bro. Col. Alexander Hannay, E.I. Co. service 1782. Served heir to Sir Robert Hannay, 1st Bt. (d.1658) (a baronetcy dormant since the death of the 2nd Bt. in 1689) 26 Sept. 1783. Hannay, who combined the lives of an eminent London drug merchant and a Scottish baronet with considerable East Indian investments, was also addicted to gambling, and apparently went through several fortunes. From 1765 onwards, Hannay appears merely as a merchant; but in 1790 in partnership with William Duncan