Life and Career
Bidlake was born in Wolverhampton, the son of local architect George Bidlake (from whom he received his earliest architectural training), and educated at Tettenhall College and Christ's College, Cambridge. In 1882 he moved to London where he studied at the Royal Academy Schools and worked for Gothic Revival architects Bodley and Garner. In 1885 he won the RIBA Pugin Travelling Fellowship for his draughtsmanship, which enabled him to spend 1886 travelling in Italy.
On returning to England in 1887 Bidlake settled in Birmingham where he set up in independent practice and, from 1893, pioneered the teaching of architecture at the Birmingham School of Art. Famously ambidextrous, his party trick was to sketch with both hands simultaneously.
Bidlake designed many Arts and Crafts-influenced houses in upmarket Birmingham districts such as Edgbaston, Moseley and Four Oaks, along with a series of more Gothic-influenced churches such as St Agatha's, Sparkbrook - generally considered his masterpiece.
In 1924, Bidlake married a woman over twenty years younger than himself and moved to Wadhurst in East Sussex, where he continued to practise until his death in 1938.
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