Necrology
Peter Bartholomew '67
Sep. 14, 1945-May. 12, 2021
Peter E. Bartholomew ’67 died during the night of May 11-12, 2021, in his home in Seoul, South Korea, where he had lived for most of his adult life. He came to Hamilton from Libertyville (Ill.) High School.
Majoring in French because, he would later confess, he thought it would be an easy major since he had learned to speak the language in Quebec where his family had resided for a time during his childhood, Bartholomew was a member of Alpha Delta Phi and, in the words of classmate John Dwyer, a “fanatical” member and supporter of the College Choir. Michael Keller ’67 described him as having a “credible baritone” voice and as being an able accompanist for the choir, a position he held during his junior year. Those who knew him well referred to him as “Bart.”
Upon graduating, Bartholomew applied to join the Peace Corps and early in 1968 received an assignment to teach in Gangwon Province. Situated in the remote northeast corner of South Korea, to its east lies the Sea of Japan and to the north the Demilitarized Zone separating it from North Korea. He remained in the Peace Corps for a total of five years and thereafter settled in Seoul where he would remain for the rest of his life.
By the end of the 1970s, he and some business partners had established themselves as consultants and had undertaken the development of a major ship-building industry in Daewoo, South Korea. It has since become the world’s leading producer of ocean-going vessels, today constructing roughly 200 ships every year or an average of about one every day and a half.
But while highly successful in his profession, Bartholomew left perhaps a greater legacy through his study and love of Korean culture. This interest was first piqued while he was teaching in Gangwon when, while on a bike ride, he came upon a compound of traditional buildings. He made the acquaintance of the elderly woman who was its owner and who later allowed him to live there.
As time went on, he became increasingly interested in the historic architecture of Korea, in particular a traditional design of homes known as the hanok. By 1974, he had acquired and subsequently renovated his own hanok in Seoul. During the rest of his life he would fill it with artifacts of Korean culture, acquiring many that are now judged to be of museum quality at a time when interest in Korean antiquity was at a low ebb. Along with other like-minded individuals, he fought to preserve houses of this design in the face of those who regarded them as outdated relics of a former time to be torn down and replaced by more contemporary designs.
His interest in Korean architecture would lead to his becoming a member and from 2008 to 2010 president of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea. His daylong guided tours of several palaces in South Korea’s capital were filled with anecdotes and observations about the state of these structures, spiked with scathing critiques of shoddy nontraditional renovations. He was reportedly not the least bit hesitant to call out mistakes in efforts to restore and preserve this part of the nation’s cultural heritage.
But for all of his public service and voluble personality — friends recall that “a short phone call” could easily last an hour or more — Bartholomew was a very private individual. Writing in the Korea Times of May 19, a close acquaintance, Robert Neff, observed: “The people who have known him for 20 or 30 or 40 years or more have surprisingly very little knowledge of him. … He was engaging and more than eager to share benign anecdotes (with a smidge of exaggeration) but never really bared his true emotions, aspirations or fears.” Another associate described him as having “a lot of acquaintances, but very few ? if any ? deep and close relationships.” The college is not aware of any survivors.
