The story of Sir Charles Barry’s life has in great measure been told in the description of his general architectural work. For that work he lived; and in it he found not only the occupation, but also most of the pleasures, of his life. It is hard for those who knew and loved him best to dissociate his memory from the recollections of his ungrudging labour upon it, and its never-flagging interest to him. It will therefore be necessary in this concluding chapter to give only a brief notice of his private life and character, and a short narrative of his death and funeral. There are many private details, treasured in the most sacred memories of home, which would be out of place in a published biography. Its proper record is of facts, which have general interest; of work, which produces lasting effects; of character, so far as that character bears upon public action and has its universal lesson.
The events of his private life were few and simple. It is said that a nation is happy if its annals be dull: he was certainly fortunate in the fact, that his domestic annals were singularly uneventful; he had few troubles and difficulties, except those connected with his professional career. In the eyes of the world his course appeared to be one of uninterrupted and increasing prosperity. He spent the whole of his life in London, moving in 1827 from his first house in Ely Place, to 27, Foley Place, where his chief designs (including that for the New Palace at Westminster) were made; thence in 1841 to 32, Great George Street, in order to be near his great work while in progress; and lastly to Clapham Common, when he began to retire in some degree from his more active professional work.[119]
He never cared to leave London, except for business or for brief recreation. A short summer run was all that he needed, and there was perhaps some want of repose in his character, which prevented his caring for a country life. All his interests were in town; he rejoiced in its bustle and society; and nothing would have compensated him for a banishment from it.
His life was pre-eminently a life of work, but work which had in it, generally speaking, no flurry or painful anxiety—work, in fact, which seemed a delight and almost a necessity. He always rose early; seldom later than six o’clock, and often at four or five. He did so naturally and habitually; in this habit probably lay much of the secret of his freshness in work and freedom from all feverish and restless excitability, even at his busiest and most anxious times. Whatever his troubles or occupations might be, he could always fall asleep at night, and, thanks to his excellent constitution, sleep was to him sound and refreshing. But, as soon as nature was satisfied, the mind resumed its activity, and in the early hours of morning there came back the whole flood of anxieties and conceptions, which defied the power of sleep and demanded immediate execution. It was well that this was his habit, excepting when, in times of great excitement or difficulty, it led him to overtask his strength. For in the time of his fullest work these morning hours were the only ones, on which he could reckon with certainty, and to these he traced many of the best of his ideas. He experienced to the full, what most early risers know, that some of the brightest thoughts belong to the very hour of waking, often solving in the first freshness of the morning a difficulty, which had perplexed or conquered him over-night. At all times, but in those morning hours particularly, his rapidity of execution was something marvellous. He himself was hardly conscious of any unusual power in this respect, and would expect of others what he felt that he could do himself. Of trouble he was utterly unsparing: he would think nothing of sponging out a whole elevation, if an idea occurred to him, by which he thought that it could be improved, even in details. Of any principal feature of a great work the number of designs would be almost endless. Like most hard workers, he was to a great extent superior to interruption. In fact, for the most part he liked society during the time of his work. He would even listen to reading, or join in conversation, without allowing the secondary currents thus generated to interfere with the main stream of thought. The interruptions of business or necessity never seemed to break the thread of his ideas; seldom to flurry or discompose him. For he had this mark of readiness and clearness of conception, that he was capable, on the one hand, of setting to work at any moment, and resuming it, after interruption, just as if no interruption had occurred, and capable, on the other, of throwing it all aside at proper times, and joining in recreation or social intercourse with all the lightheartedness of a schoolboy. But for this readiness and elasticity of mind he could never have gone through the extraordinary amount of labour, which came upon him daily for many years.
On the general method of that work something has been already quoted (on page 86), from the words of one eminently qualified to judge. It frequently happened (it was so in the case of the design for the New Palace at Westminster), that the first sketch, which he made, contained all the essential features of the design as actually carried out. Such sketches, however, were eminently artistic in effect, and they would have been even apt to mislead, had they not been immediately brought to the test of accurate scale-drawing, and enlarged details. When this was done, either by his own hand or by the hands of others, the task of modification and alteration would begin, generally, however, tending after much labour to realise more fully and perfectly the conceptions at first roughly shadowed out. Occasionally it was otherwise, especially in later years, when it can hardly be doubted that his fastidiousness of taste became excessive, leading to alterations, sometimes almost inconsistent with the original design, and securing minute improvements at too high a cost. But his most successful works were those in which the original idea predominated to the last; for they naturally had both the unity of original conception, and the effect of careful study in every detail.
His tendency was perhaps to do too much for himself, and to delegate too little of important work to the many who would have gladly helped him. If he did delegate anything, he was impatient to have it finished; and what Sir Charles expected to be done in “a couple of hours” became a proverb in his office. But it was hard to complain of one who never spared himself, and there were few who did not learn energy and actual delight in work under the shadow of his example. In spite, therefore, of the extent of his requirements and of a very determined will, which he never allowed to be questioned, he always met with cheerful and ready help, and there arose up among his assistants a strong esprit de corps, not without enthusiasm for their chief.[120]
The early mornings till breakfast time, and the evening hours from eight o’clock till (at the earliest) eleven or twelve, were devoted to the drawing-board; the day from ten to five to superintendence of buildings in progress and to various business. This was his regular work; but during the time of the preparation of the competition drawings for the New Palace he hardly gave himself more than four or five hours’ sleep out of the twenty-four. Work, however, simply as work, never seemed to overtask his powers; it was not till anxieties and disappointments were added to it, that he began to feel the strain. It was rare, even when his strength began to fail, that he complained of its pressure: it seemed to him the natural object of life, and in it certainly lay for him the secret of happiness as well as success.
His habits of life were simple and domestic. He lived very much at home in the society of his wife and children, especially during the later years of his life. That home was pervaded by the spirit of intellectual work and energy which distinguishes the homes of professional men, and all its inmates felt the direct influence of its architectural atmosphere. Of his sons, two, Charles and Edward, followed his own profession. The former was at work independently, and the latter acted as his coadjutor, till he began to retire from the more active exercise of his profession. Their career he watched with peculiar interest, and his advice and aid were always at their command. In their names he sent in his last great architectural design,—the Plan of the Westminster Improvements, elsewhere referred to. Of his other sons, two, Godfrey and John, were engaged, the one in surveying, the other in engineering work, and so followed paths of life not wholly different to his own. So far therefore his family life still reflected something of the professional thought and feeling, which elsewhere absorbed his interest. But into any successes, which his sons achieved, he entered with a special liveliness of satisfaction, and his home relations were those of almost unbroken happiness and affection.
But although this was the case, few men had less of a recluse character. His mind was singularly open to favourable impressions of strangers, and his own free and genial manner tended to draw them to him, and elicit their most attractive qualities. His judgment of character was certainly not severe or critical, and he occasionally suffered much from taking men at their own valuation.
To young artists, especially to young architects, he was always ready to show appreciation and kindness. In their case he laid aside the severity of criticism, which he indulged in relation to the works of established reputation: he was rather inclined to overrate incipient talent, and was always glad to meet it with encouragement and advice.