[2] At the recommendation of Sir William Chambers he spent two years as a pupil of the architect John Plaw[3] and was then apprenticed to the builder Thomas Wapshott, whose daughter Jane he then married.

In London he designed shop fronts[5] (one, for a tea merchant in Ludgate Hill, was in a "Chinese" style)[6] and warehouses, and built or remodelled many villas for middle-class clients in the countryside.

[5] In 1827 William Bullock commissioned Papworth to plan the layout and design various classes of building for a new city to be called "Hygeia" in the United States, on land he had bought stretching about two-and-a-half miles along the Ohio River, opposite Cincinnati.

His address is given as Bath Place, New Road, London, until 1816, and 10 Caroline Street, Bedford Square, from 1823.

[11] His brother George Papworth acted as his clerk of works until 1804 and then practised as an architect in Ireland.