Discovering the Life and Work of Halsey Ricardo - by Mark Bertram

Ahead of the publication of Halsey Ricardo: A Life in Arts and Crafts, author Mark Bertram gives us a special insight into how he brought the life and work of his great grandfather Halsey Ricardo out of the shadows (and the family attics), into the spotlight, and deservedly recognised as a champion of craftsmanship and the Arts & Crafts movement as well as an influential thinker and teacher. Read on for Mark's reflections... 

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Halsey and Kate (seated) at Rickettswood c.1882.

My great grandfather, the architect Halsey Ricardo, died in 1928, fourteen years before I was born. My grandparents moved into the house, Woodside, that Ricardo had built for himself in Sussex. When visiting them throughout my childhood soon after the Second World War, Ricardo’s presence still seemed to stalk the house. The 1906 portrait of him hung rather darkly just inside the front door. His grand piano, no longer played, stood behind a heavy curtain at the far end of the drawing room. Gimson furniture and De Morgan tilework adorned the main rooms. The villagers remembered him and knew the house. 

I trained as an architect and, for a required historical dissertation for my second diploma, chose  Ricardo and his works as my subject. The Cambridge School of Architecture in the mid-1960s had slight interest in the work, or character, of a Victorian domestic architect and, although my submission was deemed to pass muster, it was returned to me without comment. I have no evidence that it was ever read by an examiner. That was fine by me, but I thought it was less than fair to Ricardo. So, a few years later, I took the liberty of asking Nikolaus Pevsner whether he might recommend my dissertation for publication. I know, from his many pencilled comments on the same copy as Cambridge had handed back to me pristine, that he read it carefully. His verdict was that there was quite a lot more work to be done before it could be published but he hoped that I would persevere with it.

Vase, with storks modelled in relief, designed and painted by Ricardo, c.1890.

Letter to Kate, 1887, about a house just spotted from the train window.

I am afraid that I never did. Marriage, architectural career, life and children too fully occupied the next 55 years. But I maintained an interest in Ricardo throughout those years and was the willing recipient of some of his correspondence and drawings that my grandparents, followed by my parents, no longer wanted to keep at Woodside, and for which I happened to have enough space in my own house. When my mother died at Woodside (by then called Ricardo’s) at the turn of this century, the family decided to sell the house, and it fell to me to manage its final clearance and to host a Farewell party there for all of Halsey’s and Kate’s numerous descendants.

Family Farewell to Woodside party, 2001. 

Ricardo’s name as an architect became more widely known towards the end of the last century, thanks not least to references to him by Margaret Richardson and Alastair Service. My own name as a provenance of Ricardo material also filtered out, and I answered questions from, and lent material to, subsequent dissertation writers, several owners of houses he had built, as well as a few more established authors researching De Morgan’s and Ricardo’s correspondence about their business partnership. Two Country Life articles in 1975 by Madge Garland on Ricardo’s London houses in Addison Road, Melbury Road and Old Church Street may have marked a turning point in his public recognition. My hopes that a recognised architectural author would assimilate the material that I had saved and write a monograph about Ricardo were never fulfilled. Eventually, the combination of my becoming an octogenarian and being locked down by Covid persuaded me to volunteer to do the job as best I could myself, and this book is the result.

The Eastern Railway 2005 centenary celebration volume of Howrah Station. 

Tiled plaque beside the front door of 8 Addison Road, London.

My purposes were several. First and foremost, to record all of his architectural design and building works for the historical record: they are not that plentiful, because he insisted on doing every detail of every one of them himself, but they include several masterworks. On a lesser plane, it is notable from visiting Ricardo’s houses how well regarded they still are by their owners or occupiers for their congenial demeanour and mild quirkiness. I hope this updated factual record will stand future architectural historians in good stead. My second purpose was to delineate the main sidelines of Ricardo’s professional life: his contribution to the De Morgan partnership, which motivated his lifelong pre-occupation with the colour of buildings; his convictions about craftsmanship through Societies and lectures; and his teaching of architecture at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (though sadly no lists of his students survive). Thirdly, I wanted to capture something of Ricardo’s extraordinary personality, learning and good humour: his private correspondence, particularly with Kate, yields plentiful insights.

Ricardo family lore always had him marked as a charming man. I would go further than that and call him a character of startling individuality.

Halsey Ricardo: A Life in Arts and Crafts will be published by Lund Humphries in March 2025