Thirty-two buildings, none of them named

His earliest known book was not about building. Sacred Lyrics (1831) put the Psalms into verse for parish singing. The Builder says it was “warmly praised by nearly the whole bench of bishops”, but it “made no way in public use”: it was not, the Art-Union explains, “authorized to be ‘said or sung in the churches’“.11 Sacred Lyrics: being an attempt to render the Psalms of David more applicable to parochial psalmody (London: printed for the author, and sold by C. J. G. & F. Rivington, 1831), title page and imprint (https://archive.org/details/sacredlyricsbei00bartgoog); The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29; The Art-Union, February 1845, p. 38. The first dated record of him as an architect comes from the same year. On 3 March 1831 he showed the Society of Antiquaries a drawing of terracotta tiles found under No. 11 Clerkenwell Green.22 The Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1831, p. 252 (Society of Antiquaries, meeting of 3 March 1831: “Alfred Bartholomew, esq. architect” exhibited “an arranged drawing of some tiles of terra cotta”). In 1834 he exhibited a “Design—Infant School at Brixton” at the Royal Academy, his only exhibit there. Whether the school was built is not known.33 Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors, vol. I (1905), p. 134 (“1834. 945 Design—Infant School at Brixton”); Colvin (1954); Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), “Bartholomew, Alfred”.

By July 1838 he was living at Warwick House, Gray’s Inn, where he stayed until his death. He describes a small studio he fitted up, “about fourteen feet square”, with a ceiling copied from the intersecting domes in the aisles of St Paul’s, “to teach his workmen the knowledge of the sections of domes”.44 Hints (1839), dedication (“Warwick House, Gray’s Inn, July 1838”); The Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1845, p. 320; Specifications (1840), footnote in Part I ch. XLII. He does not say where the studio was.

His practice is almost invisible. In 1840 he claimed that thirty-two of his specifications had “been carried into absolute execution”, mostly under his own supervision, but he named none of the buildings.55 Specifications (1840), Preface §V (“principally under my own immediate superintendence”). His book mentions in passing a four-storey corner house whose walls were built to lean inward by three inches, and a ruinous wall of St John’s church, Clerkenwell, in which he found a gilded medieval capital.66 Specifications (1840), §456 (corner house) and footnote to §295 (St John’s, Clerkenwell; “about two years since”, so roughly the mid to late 1830s). Both rest on his own account. He also mentions repairs for Messrs Rivington in St Paul’s Churchyard, a stone gateway, wharf buildings, printing offices and manufactories (footnote to §568; §§604, 4157, 566). In 1841 he wrote that since 1839 he had “designed several buildings upon” fire-proof principles (The Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1841, p. 583). None of these works has been identified. The Architectural Publication Society’s Dictionary was blunt: “His private practice did not afford works of sufficient importance for further notice”.77 Architectural Publication Society, The Dictionary of Architecture, vol. 1, “Bartholomew (Alfred)” (Internet Archive gri_33125008732923). Colvin (1954) agrees: “His practice was not large”.