The watchmaker’s son

Alfred Bartholomew was born in London on 28 March 1801.11 The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29: “Mr. Bartholomew was born in London on the 28th of March, 1801”; The Art-Union, February 1845, p. 38: “He was born on the 28th of March, 1801”. According to W. J. Pinks’s History of Clerkenwell (1881), he was born in Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell, renamed Britton Street in 1937.22 W. J. Pinks, The History of Clerkenwell, 2nd edn (1881), p. 693 (https://archive.org/details/b24863944); Survey of London vol. 46 (2008), p. 164, para [p1] (Red Lion Street “renamed in 1937 after the antiquary John Britton”), https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol46/pp164-181. Pinks is the only source for the street. The Survey records Josiah Bartholomew at No. 25 Red Lion Street from 1793 until 1847, “during which time his two sons were born” (p. 169, para [p24] and fn. 31); Sun Fire Office policies place a watchmaker named Bartholomew at No. 25 in 1803 and 1811 and name Josiah there in 1838 (The London Archives, MS 11936/427/750333, MS 11936/452/858688, MS 11936/563/1281478, TNA Discovery catalogue entries). No source says that Alfred was born in No. 25 itself. Josiah died in Red Lion Street in December 1847 (The Gentleman’s Magazine, January 1848, p. 105; will, The National Archives, PROB 11/2067/36). His father, Josiah, was a watchmaker there. The Art-Union remembered Josiah as a man who, “for nearly half a century”, was in the affairs of the parish of St John’s “the earnest and consistent advocate of the humbler classes”.33 The Art-Union, February 1845, p. 38. Only this source mentions the parish role. Alfred’s elder brother, Valentine (1799–1879), became a watercolour painter of flowers and Flower Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria.44 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 3 (1885), “Bartholomew, Valentine” (born 18 January 1799; died 21 March 1879); Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (Williamson edn, 1925 printing), vol. I, p. 88; The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29 (“Flower Painter to her Majesty”); The Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1845, p. 321. Valentine joined the Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1835.

The Builder said that Alfred had “only that moderate degree of education” usual among those “not destined for one of the learned professions”. He went on to learn several languages.55 The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29 (education; “the acquisition of several languages”); The Art-Union, February 1845, p. 38 (languages). From boyhood he watched buildings go up. The Art-Union recalled “a slight pale youth” following the building of the London Institution in Finsbury Circus, begun in 1815.66 The Art-Union, February 1845, p. 38; George Kelly, George Birkbeck (1957), citing The Times, 9 November 1815, for the foundation stone. The building was in use by 1819 (a lecture delivered there on 5 May 1819). Oliver Bradbury, Sir John Soane’s Influence on Architecture from 1791 (Routledge, 2017), p. 93, gives it as “by William Brooks … of 1815–1819”. He himself remembered seeing, as a child, “a whole row of houses being erected, with fifty of these sham arches”.77 Bartholomew, Specifications for Practical Architecture (London: John Williams, 1840), §574.

The obituaries differ on what settled his career. The Builder says that his “early-developed devotion to geometry and science in general” persuaded his father to make him an architect. The Art-Union credits his boyhood carving of “miniature Corinthian capitals and other architectural ornaments”. Both may be true.88 The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29; The Art-Union, February 1845, p. 38. The Dictionary of National Biography (1885) adds that he was “Originally destined for commercial life”; none of the 1845 obituaries says so, and the DNB cites only “[Builder, 1845]” (vol. 3, p. 332, “Bartholomew, Alfred”, by G. W. Burnet).