Albert O'Donnell Bartholeyns (5 January 1852 – 20 May 1922) was an English journalist, hospital administrator, professional b-word, and translator of plays.

Biography

Bartholeyns was born at

Welbeck Street Welbeck Street is a street in the West End of London, West End, central London. It has historically been associated with the medical profession. Former resident Andrew Berry was one of the men to have successfully deployed a parachute at altitu ...

Cavendish Square Cavendish Square is a public square, public garden square in Marylebone in the West End of London. It has a double-helix underground commercial car park. Its northern road forms ends of four streets: of Wigmore Street that runs to Portman Square ...

, London, to Pierre Jean Joseph Bartholeyns de Fossalaert, a Belgian diplomat, and Emma Jane Grattan,''England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975'' daughter of Thomas Colley Grattan. His father, Attaché of the Belgian Legation in London and Frankfurt, was elevated to the Belgian nobility in 1857. Bartholeyns's contributions to London newspapers were mostly, as was the practice of the day, unsigned. He contributed to, among others, ''

The Morning Post ''The Morning Post'' was a conservative daily newspaper published in London from 1772 to 1937, when it was acquired by ''The Daily Telegraph''. History The paper was founded by John Bell. According to historian Robert Darnton, ''The Morning ...

'' and ''

The Pall Mall Gazette ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed i ...

'', and was described in '' The Era'' as well known in his profession.''The Era'', 11 June 1898, p. 17 As Secretary-Superintendent of the

Middlesex Hospital Middlesex Hospital was a teaching hospital located in the Fitzrovia area of London, England. First opened as the Middlesex Infirmary in 1745 on Windmill Street, it was moved in 1757 to Mortimer Street where it remained until it was finally clos ...

, he featured regularly in the columns of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' and other papers during the 1880s, appealing for funds. He published a book, ''The Great Hospitals of London'' in 1888. Bartholeyns also published books on religious themes, including ''The Legend of the Christmas Rose'', a retelling of the Gospel story of the Magi. The text was first presented onstage with ''tableaux vivants'', at St. George's Hall, London in the summer of 1898, and published in book form in December of the same year. He followed this with ''The Wonder Workers, A Dream of Holy Flowers''. As a translator, he adapted

Tasso TASSO (Two Arm Spectrometer SOlenoid) was a particle detector at the PETRA particle accelerator at the German national laboratory DESY. The TASSO collaboration is best known for having discovered the gluon, the mediator of the strong interaction an ...

's ''

Aminta ''Aminta'' is a play written by Torquato Tasso in 1573, represented during a garden party at the court of Ferrara. Both the actors and the public were noble persons living at the Court, who could understand subtle allusions the poet made to that ...

'' as a pastoral play for English performance (music by Henry Gadsby), and Goldoni's '' La Locandiera'' as ''Our Hostess'', presented at the Theatre Royal Kilburn in 1897. His original stage work included a one-act musical piece, ''A la Française'', written with the composer

Meyer Lutz Wilhelm Meyer Lutz (19 May 1829 – 31 January 1903) was a German-born British composer and conductor who is best known for light music, musical theatre and Victorian burlesque, burlesques of well-known works. Emigrating to the UK at the age o ...

in 1893, and a biographical play ''Swift and Vanessa'' about Dean Swift in 1904."Dramatic Notes", ''Academy and Literature'', 16 January 1904, p. 77 For the

D'Oyly Carte Opera Company The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. The ...

, he adapted Theodor Körner's libretto ''Der vierjährige Posten'' as '' The Outpost'', with music by Hamilton Clarke, premiered at the

Savoy Theatre The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre was designed by C. J. Phipps for Richard D'Oyly Carte and opened on 10 October 1881 on a site previously occupied by the Savoy ...

in July 1900.Walters, Michael and George Low
"The Outpost"
. ''Curtain Raisers'', The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 25 April 2008, accessed 8 May 2010 He died in London, aged 71.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bartholeyns, Albert ODonnell 1852 births 1922 deaths People from Marylebone Journalists from London English opera librettists English male journalists English translators English male dramatists and playwrights British people of Belgian descent British people of Irish descent British hospital administrators Writers from the City of Westminster