Tulk was educated at Westminster School, of which he became captain, and was noted for his singing in the abbey choir. He was elected a king's scholar in 1801, and matriculated as a scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1806.

Reaching age 21 in 1807, Tulk had settled on him part of his father's estate in the area of Leicester Square in London. He sold the garden in the Square in 1808; forty years