Arthur Percival Starkey was born in Ryton, Warwickshire, England in December 1880 and was articled in Coventry, England. He enlisted in the Anglo-Boar War in South Africa in 1899. Following the war he remained in South Africa and worked in a number of architectural offices in Johannesburg. By 1905 he had returned to England and was employed in the office of Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott (1865-1945) in Bedford. He subsequently worked in the Architects' Department of Lancashire County Council until 1914 when he joined the Admiralty Air Department.
Between 1919 and his death he practised in Harrow, Middlesex. Two photographs and two floor plans of 'Bentley Cottage' in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, designed by Starkey are illustrated in 'The Studio Yearbook of Decorative Art' 1924 (p.14), photographs of 'Bamford Cottage' in Harrow-on-the-Hill, London, the dining room fireplace at 'Westernhay' in Weybridge, Surrey, and a garden seat at 'Bamford Cottage' in Harrow-on-the-Hill designed by him are illustrated in 'The Studio Yearbook of Decorative Art' 1925 (pp.33, 59, 171), a photograph and ground-floor plan of 'Manor Cottage' in Hawton, Nottinghamshire, designed by him is illustrated in 'The Studio Yearbook of Decorative Art' 1926 (pp.24, 48), two photographs and a ground-floor plan of 'Commons Edge' in Gerrard's Cross designed by him are illustrated in 'Decorative Art' 1927 (p.25), and two photographs and a ground-floor plan of 'Windmill' in Duntisbourne Abbots, Gloucestershire, designed by him are illustrated in 'Decorative Art' 1928 (p.59).
Starkey is known to have designed at least five Odeon cinemas - the Odeon South Harrow, in Harrow, Middlesex (1933), the Odeon Kingsbury, in Kingsbury, London (1934), the Odeon Wealdstone, in Harrow, Middlesex (1934), the Odeon Theatre (later known as the Classic Cinema) in Collindale, London (1935); and the Sudbury Town Odeon in Sudbury, London (1935).
Starkey exhibited once at the Royal Academy in London in 1910. He died in Middlesex, England on 6 August 1946.
Directory of British Architects 1834-1914. Compiled by Antonia Brodie, et al. Volume 2: L-Z. London; New York: British Architectural Library, Royal Institute of British Architects/Continuum, 2001
‘Obituary’. The Builder vol. 171, 16 August 1946 p. 163