One day in office

The Builder was founded in 1843 by Joseph Aloysius Hansom, and Bartholomew succeeded him as editor. When is disputed, but he edited the paper through 1844, and both obituaries credit his leading articles with raising its circulation.11 The Builder, 4 February 1888, pp. 75–76 (Hansom the founder and first editor; Godwin the third); CEAJ, vol. VII, January 1844, p. 17 (attacking “the new Editor of a contemporary journal”); The Art-Union, February 1845, p. 38 (editor “for the last twelve months”); The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29 (“the past year”). Pace (1942), p. 102, and Buchanan (2013), p. 110, give 1843. Ian Nairn would remember him as “an early editor of the Builder” (reception).22 Ian Nairn, Nairn’s London (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), p. 172. Copyright; quoted briefly.

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He was unwell by October 1844. On 28 November he was elected district surveyor for the new district of Hornsey under the Metropolitan Buildings Act, by 108 votes to 38.33 The Builder, 26 October 1844, p. 537 (part of the Cyclopaedia postponed “from the indisposition of its author”); The Builder, 30 November 1844, p. 589 (108 votes to James Harrison’s 38). According to The Builder, the canvass brought on “an attack of rheumatic gout and fever … taking cold, however, bronchitis resulted, which unhappily proved but too fatal”.44 The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29. The Art-Union (February 1845, p. 38) says the illness “seized him the day after his election”. A new editor, later named as George Godwin, took over the paper at the end of the year.55 The Builder, 28 December 1844, p. 637, and 4 January 1845, p. 1 (“the present editor, commencing a new task”). Godwin is named only in later accounts: The Builder, 4 February 1888, p. 76, and 1 January 1943 (“he handed over to George Godwin in the last issue of 1844”). In his last days Bartholomew corrected the proofs of his Cyclopaedia of the new Act, and his society held its second anniversary round his sick-bed.66 The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29 (“his last work was to correct the proofs”); The Art-Union, February 1845, p. 38. The Cyclopædia of the New Metropolitan Building-Act was issued as a supplement to The Builder on 9 November 1844; a pocket edition followed in 1845 at five shillings (The Builder, 17 May and 21 June 1845). The society’s anniversary fell on Advent Eve 1844 (30 November).

He died at Warwick House, Gray’s Inn, on 2 January 1845, aged 43.77 The Builder, 11 January 1845, p. 23 (“expired, after a severe illness, on the 2nd instant, at his residence in Gray’s-Inn”); The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29; The Art-Union, February 1845, p. 38; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). The Gentleman’s Magazine (March 1845, p. 320) gives 3 January, and the Dictionary of National Biography (1885) and Colvin (2008) give his age as 44; the earlier accounts outweigh both. The Art-Union recorded the timing: “He entered officially on his office the 1st of January, 1845, and died on the 2nd, in his 44th year, holding the appointment for which he had so indefatigably canvassed but one day.”88 The Art-Union, February 1845, p. 38. “In his 44th year” means aged 43. A Middlesex Sessions committee report printed in The Builder of 26 October 1844 says that the new Act’s provisions on buildings came into operation on 1 January 1845. He left a widow and, according to the Art-Union, children. Their names are not known.99 The Builder, 15 February 1845, p. 76 (a motion that a testimonial be “presented to the founder’s widow”); The Art-Union, February 1845, p. 38 (“his wife, his children”). No record of his burial or of a will has been found (TNA Discovery searches). No portrait is known: the National Portrait Gallery has no record of him, though it holds two photographs of Valentine from the 1860s (NPG x38974, NPG Ax131850).