Chapter II

. is drawn from them. But they were mostly notes for practical use, and, before they could be published, they would need alterations and developments, which he alone had the right to give them. During his professional life they contained simply brief memoranda of every day’s work. I could not therefore quote them with advantage, but I have found them of the greatest value in ascertaining facts and fixing dates, which otherwise might have escaped me.

For all professional information and opinion,--for all, in fact, which may give any value to the work,--I have been able to refer to my brothers, in regard to the later part of my father’s career, with every fact of which they were intimately acquainted. For the earlier portion I have depended mainly on J. L. Wolfe, Esq., who was to my father the true friend of a lifetime, almost the only person who knew well his opinions and principles, and to whose aid and criticism he was materially indebted. He has given me notes and information, which I have found invaluable, especially in regard of the story of the New Palace at Westminster, which must be the central feature of the biography. For all the letterpress, however, I hold myself responsible. The choice of the illustrations is due to my eldest brother. We have to acknowledge with thanks the permission given us to use in some cases illustrations which have already appeared. Believing that an architectural record must speak mainly to the eye, we should gladly have given further illustrations; instead of some which are here found, we should have wished to represent more of the unexecuted designs, had authentic drawings been at hand; but we conceive that those actually given, especially the large illustrations of the Westminster Improvements, will be of great interest, both to the profession and to the public.

With these materials at command, and with these authorities to refer to, I have tried to tell my story, without tincturing the record with undue

## partiality, or introducing into it those merely private details, either

of fact or of feeling, which appear to me to be utterly out of place in a published narrative.

I trust also, that, in speaking of controversies, and in dwelling on some parts of my father’s life, on which I cannot but feel strongly, I shall be thought to have observed due moderation of expression, and due respect for the reputation of others. In some cases I have simply stated facts, and left it to others to draw inferences and make comments upon them. It will not, I hope, be supposed that reticence in such cases implies any want of strong conviction or strong feeling on my own part. In fact, as the work has proceeded, I have felt more and more that such reticence is forced upon a son, when he is writing his father’s life, and I do not think that it need necessarily interfere with the impression which the record ought to create.

The story itself may perhaps be mainly one of professional interest. But this is a time in which Art is beginning to be recognised as an important subject to the public; and the record of a career not unimportant in regard of artistic progress, of the erection of one of the largest and most important buildings of modern times, and of designs and opinions bearing upon most public improvements now actually in contemplation, may therefore commend itself to general notice.

I have only to say in conclusion, that the inevitable difficulties in the task of preparation, the duty of wading through long official documents, and the necessity of seeking in many quarters information (which, even now, has occasionally arrived too late for use),[1] have delayed the publication of this Memoir to a period far later than that originally contemplated. I am far, however, from regretting this enforced delay. Whatever interest there may be in the record of works and opinions here given, it is not of a temporary character; and it is clear, from many indications, that even the time, which has already elapsed, has served to bring out public opinion more clearly, and has tended to the formation of a true estimate of Sir Charles Barry’s architectural genius, and of the position which his works must hold in the progress of English Art.

A. B.

_Cheltenham, April, 1867._

ADDENDUM.

Since this work was printed, the risk alluded to in page 195, as likely to arise from the employment of the late Mr. A. W. Pugin on the New Palace at Westminster, has been unexpectedly realized fifteen years after his death by some extraordinary claims put forward by his son. These claims, referring as they do to a question raised and settled in the life-time of those concerned, have not appeared to me to require any notice in these pages. I have therefore left the whole passage in pp. 194-198 precisely as it was originally written, without the alteration of a single word. It contains the exact account of the connexion which existed between Mr. A. W. Pugin and my father, and which, I repeat, so far as Sir Charles Barry’s knowledge and feeling were concerned, was never broken by any dispute or estrangement, from the day when Mr. Pugin (then a young man of 23) was first employed on the drawings of the New Palace, until the day of his death in 1852.

A. B.

_October 22nd, 1867._

CONTENTS.

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