Sir Alfred George Temple FSA (27 October 1848 – 8 January 1928) was the director of the

Guildhall Art Gallery The Guildhall Art Gallery houses the art collection of the City of London, England. The museum is located in the Moorgate area of the City of London. It is a stone building in a semi-Gothic style intended to be sympathetic to the historic Guil ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, from 1886 to 1928. Temple was born in London and educated at Denmark Hill Grammar School. He joined an

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firm as a junior clerk, but was sacked two years later for throwing a

ledger A ledger is a book or collection of accounts in which account transactions are recorded. Each account has an opening or carry-forward balance, and would record each transaction as either a debit or credit in separate columns, and the ending or ...

at a senior clerk. Six months later he joined the Town Clerk's Department of the

City of London Corporation The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the municipal governing body of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United King ...

, following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and great-uncle, who had served the Corporation for a total of 85 years between them. He took evening classes at the

Lambeth School of Art Founded in 1854 as the Lambeth School of Art, the City and Guilds of London Art School is a small specialist art college located in central London, England. Originally founded as a government art school, it is now an independent, not-for-profit ...

and the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), and when the Corporation established the Guildhall Art Gallery in 1886, Temple was appointed its first director, a post he held until his death. He built up the collection into one of the best in England and also wrote many books and articles on art. Temple was knighted in the 1920

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. He died at his home in College Road,

Dulwich Dulwich (; ) is an area in south London, England. The settlement is mostly in the London Borough of Southwark, with parts in the London Borough of Lambeth, and consists of Dulwich Village, East Dulwich, West Dulwich, and the Southwark half ...

, South London, and was buried at nearby

West Norwood Cemetery West Norwood Cemetery is a rural cemetery in West Norwood in London, England. It was also known as the South Metropolitan Cemetery. One of the first private landscaped cemeteries in London, it is one of the " Magnificent Seven" cemeteries of ...

Footnotes

References

*Obituary, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', 9 January 1928 1848 births 1928 deaths Businesspeople from London English art historians English curators Directors of museums in the United Kingdom Knights Bachelor Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Burials at West Norwood Cemetery {{UK-art-historian-stub