Author: BARTHOLOMEW, Alfred
Biography:
BARTHOLOMEW, Alfred (1801-45: ODNB)
He was born on 28 Mar. 1801 at Clerkenwell, London, the fifth of seven children of Josiah Bartholomew, watchmaker, and Betsy Benson, who had married at St. Sepulchre, City of London, in 1792. He received a basic local education and was then articled to J. H. Good of Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, a Church Commissioners’ architect and former pupil of Sir John Soane. Bartholomew’s most famous building is the elegant Grade II listed Finsbury Savings Bank in Sekforde Street, Clerkenwell, which still exists as a private residence. He married Jane French on 18 June 1834 at St. John’s, Clerkenwell. They had at least two sons and two daughters. From 1843 he was briefly editor of the Builder, to which he contributed several articles on practical aspects of building and commentary on legislation. His Specifications for Practical Architecture (1840) was highly regarded in its day but was later little read as the professions of architect, engineer, and builder, increasingly separated and marked out their own territory. Like many early Victorians, he was influenced by notions of Victorian Gothic and the recovery and integration of the skills of medieval masons in modern metropolitan life. He founded the Freemasons of the Church in 1842 to promote these ideals. In the 1841 Census, he and his family were living at Warwick Court (now Warwick House), Holborn, with him giving his profession as architect. He died there on 2 Jan. 1845 and was buried at St. John’s, Clerkenwell. At the time of his death he was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and had recently been appointed district surveyor for Hornsey, North London. Sacred Lyrics (1831) was widely admired but never influential. John Holland’s comprehensive The Psalmists of Britain (1843) makes no mention of it. After his death, his widow lived first with her parents and later with her two unmarried children, Alfred and Elizabeth. She died at Ventnor, Isle of Wight in 1872. (ODNB 16 June 2023; ancestry.co.uk 16 June 2023; findmypast.co.uk 16 June 2023; Sun, 21 June 1834; MH 6 Jan. 1845; GM Mar. 1845, 320-1; Morning Advertiser 26 Aug. 1872) AA