Early mornings at the Bank of England

About 1817, according to the Gentleman’s Magazine, he was articled to the architect J. H. Good, “then of Hatton Garden (a former pupil of Sir John Soane)”.11 The Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1845, pp. 320–321 (“about the year 1817”; the OCR’s “1217” reads “1817” on the page image); The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29 (Good “then of Hatton Garden”). Pinks (1881), p. 693, repeats the date, which rests on the Gentleman’s Magazine. Joseph Henry Good (1775–1857) was Soane’s pupil from 1795 until 1799 (G. G. Pace, Architectural Review 92, October 1942, p. 99 n. 2) or 1800 (Howard Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, 1954, “Good, Joseph Henry”). That made Bartholomew, in Oliver Bradbury’s phrase, “a pupil of a pupil of Soane”. He was never Soane’s own pupil.22 Bradbury (2017), p. 95. Copyright; quoted briefly.

He took the connection to heart. The Builder pictured him “up early in the morning during his pupilage”, “carefully measuring and delineating, amongst other buildings, the most beautiful parts of the Bank of England, with a reverence for Soane”.33 The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29. While still under articles he taught perspective “to the younger branches of a noble family”, the first money his studies earned him.44 The Builder, 18 January 1845, p. 29. Colvin’s Biographical Dictionary (4th edn, Yale, 2008), “Good, Joseph Henry”, records working drawings “by A. Bartholomew” in the RIBA Drawings Collection for Good’s house at Apps Court, Walton-on-Thames (1821–2). If so, they are the only drawn work known from his pupillage. Only Colvin gives this; the RIBA catalogue has not been checked. When “about nineteen years old” he entered a competition for a church and “sat up all night for a whole week” to finish the drawings. He proposed “a lofty steeple, of pyramidal outline”, but “another design was chosen”.55 Specifications (1840), §65. The church is not named.

The reverence did not last. In 1839 he called Soane “in many respects a wayward and mean architect”, while giving him “great credit” for making the Bank of England “entirely fire-proof”.66 Bartholomew, Hints relative to the Construction of Fire-proof Buildings (1839), §21 (p. 14). A year later he blamed Soane for “all the bad taste, the reedings and scorings, which for twenty years cut up our architecture”.77 Specifications (1840), §§384 and 856. Bradbury (2017), p. 95, calls Bartholomew “a devotee of Soane”; these passages (§§856–857) qualify that. Whether any of Soane found its way into the Sekforde Street front is discussed on the history page.