Dates

• Existence: 1846 - 1896

Biography

John Henry Middleton was born at York on 5 October 1846, the only surviving child of John Middleton (d. 1885), architect, of York, and Maria Margaret, his wife, daughter of James Pigott Pritchett, architect, of York, and his first wife, Peggy Maria Terry. As a child he was taken by his parents to Italy, where he acquired a love of that country and its language, which lasted throughout his life. On their return his parents settled at Cheltenham, where his father practised as an architect, and where Middleton himself was educated, first at a preparatory school, and afterwards at Cheltenham College. In 1865 he was matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford but in the following year suffered a severe depression accentuated by the sudden death of a close friend at Oxford. This led to him confining himself to his room for six years. During this time, through reading and study, he laid the foundations of his extensive knowledge of art and archaeology. On his recovery Middleton started off on a series of travels of an arduous and adventurous nature. He visited America, crossing it to Salt Lake City and the Rocky Mountains, and descending into Mexico. He travelled in Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and north Africa. On his return he adopted the profession of an architect, studied for a time in the office of Sir George Gilbert Scott, and became a partner in his father's business at Storey's Gate, Westminster. The profession was, however, never congenial to him, and after his father's sudden death in February 1885 he placed the business in thorough working order, and disposed of it to others. Middleton had never ceased to pursue his favourite studies of art and archaeology, and even went through a course in the schools of the Royal Academy. His extensive and accurate knowledge became well known. In June 1879 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and was a frequent contributor to their Proceedings and their publications; he was elected a vice-president of the society in 1894. He was also a considerable contributor to the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' (9th edn), as well as to many weekly and other periodicals. He made a special study of the antiquities of Rome, and in 1885 published these as 'Ancient Rome' followed in 1892 with 'Remains of Ancient Rome'. In these works Middleton was a pioneer of the serious and scientific study of Roman antiquities. In 1886 he was elected Slade professor of fine art at Cambridge and was twice re-elected to the professorship. In 1888 he was elected a fellow of King's College, Cambridge and in 1889 appointed director of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge and was also appointed a lecturer at the Royal Academy in London. In 1892 he was selected to fill the important post of art director of the South Kensington Museum, a department then sadly in need of reform and reorganization. Several reforms of great importance were at once initiated and carried out by Middleton at South Kensington. In December 1892 he married Bella, second daughter of William J. Stillman, American correspondent of 'The Times' at Rome. They had one child. The strain of difficult and uncongenial departmental work at South Kensington brought on threatenings of the disease from which he had suffered in his early youth, and for which he had frequently to resort to opiates. An accidental overdose of morphia cut short his life at the Residences, South Kensington Museum, on 10 June 1896.

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