(b Middlesex, c. 1760; d New South Wales, 1804).
Australian architect of English birth. He was probably no more than a master-builder’s assistant by 1785 when he was sentenced to transportation. In January 1788 he arrived with the first fleet in the new colony of New South Wales at Port Jackson, Sydney, and as an experienced brickmaker he was immediately put in charge of the brickworks at Brickfield Hill, producing the first bricks for the colony three months after arrival. He became Australia’s first architect when Governor Arthur Phillip put him in charge of permanent building projects, including the first Government House (completed 1789; destr.), erected on a hill overlooking Sydney Cove. This two-storey building was the first in the colony to have architectural pretensions; built of brick with stone dressings and a hipped roof, it had glazed sash windows brought from England and a projecting gabled frontispiece, the central doorway surrounded by glazed sidelights and a semicircular fanlight. Although simple, the building embodied the principles of Georgian design in which Bloodworth was well grounded. Later extended and constantly under repair, it served as Government House for 56 years. Other buildings designed by Bloodworth in ...