Ninian Comper

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Ninian Comper
The spectacular interior of St. Mary's, Wellingborough. - geograph.org.uk - 1656080.jpg
The interior of St Mary's, Wellingborough
Born (1864-06-10)10 June 1864
Aberdeen, Scotland
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Clapham, London, United Kingdom
Nationality British
Occupation Architect
Practice Bucknall & Comper

Sir (John) Ninian Comper (10 June 1864 – 22 December 1960)[1][2] was a Scottish-born architect. He was one of the last Gothic Revival architects,[3] his work almost entirely comprising restoration and embellishment of churches, ecclesiatical furnishings, stained glass and vestments. He is celebrated for his use of colour, iconography and emphasis on churches as a setting for liturgy. In his later works he developed the subtle integration of Classical and Gothic elements, an approach he described as 'Unity by Inclusion'.[4]

Early life

Comper was born in Aberdeen, the eldest of five children of Ellen Taylor of Hull and the Reverend John Comper, Rector of St John's, Aberdeen (and later St Margaret of Scotland) in the Scottish Episcopal Church. He was educated at Kingston College, Aberdeen, Glenalmond School in Perthshire and studied drawing for a year at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford before moving to London to serve articles with Charles Eamer Kempe, and in 1883 to George Frederick Bodley and Thomas Garner. Fellow Scot William Bucknall took him into his London partnership in 1888 and Ninian was married to Grace Bucknall in 1890. Bucknall and Comper remained in partnership until 1905.[5]

Career

After a number of restorations and embellishments of existing buildings,Comper's first completed commission for an entirely new church was St Cyprian's, Clarence Gate, London which sought to put into practice the precepts of the Alcuin Club, with whose liturgical views he remained closely identified. The warm reception afforded to St Cyrprian's rapidly led to an increase in commissions.

Other commissions include a range of windows in the north wall of the nave of Westminster Abbey; at St Peter's Church, Huddersfield, baldachino/ciborium, high altar and east window in memory of the dead of the Great War; St Mary's, Wellingborough; St Michael & All Angels, Inverness; the Lady Chapel at Downside Abbey, Somerset; the ciborium and House Chapel extension for the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Oxford (now St Stephen's House, Oxford); the Lady Chapel at St Matthew's, Westminster; Lady Chapel and gilded paintings in the chancel of All Saints, Margaret Street. He also designed the main building for infants for St Mary & St John School on Hertford Street in Oxford, now the Comper Foundation School.

Comper is noted for continuing the tradition of designing altars in a medieval fashion, known as the 'English altar', which was first re-introduced by A.W. Pugin. An 'English altar' is an altar surrounded by riddel posts, from which riddel curtains hang, contemporary creations of which sometimes include a gradine, and despite its name, it is found in not just Medieval England, but other parts of Europe as well, including France and Italy. Comper designed a number of remarkable altar screens (reredos), inspired by medieval originals. Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, has one example.[6] He was also capable of innovative planning; his Church of St Mary-in-the-Baum, Rochdale responds to a restricted urban site by placing the "sensationally high"[7] nave on the well-lit southern side of the building, with the aisle on the north side.[8]

Reredos in Wymondham Abbey, designed by Comper

Likewise,in 1936–38 he designed St Philip's Church at Cosham near Portsmouth, with a highly original plan with centralised altar; this appealed to the post world war II generation New Churches Movement because of the primacy of the altar as the focus of the design,[9] though many architects and critics, such as Nikolaus Pevsner by then saw his adherence to Gothic forms as an anachronism in the second half of the twentieth century.[10]

Comper's sole United States work is the Leslie Lindsey Chapel of Boston's Emmanuel Episcopal Church, comprising the decorative scheme for the chapel designed by Allen & Collins. Comper designed the altar, screen, pulpit, lectern, statuary, furnishings and the stained glass windows.[11] The chapel commemorates Leslie Lindsey and Stewart Mason, her husband of ten days, who were married at Emmanuel Church and perished when the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915.[12]

From 1912 Comper and his wife lived in London at The Priory, Beulah Hill, a house designed by Decimus Burton (1800–81), where he entertained friends such as John Betjeman. He had a studio nearby at Knights Hill, close to the Cemetery at West Norwood. After the studio was destroyed in World War II it was relocated to a building in his garden, previously been used by his son, Nicholas Comper (1897–1939), to design aircraft.[13]

Comper was knighted by King George VI in 1950.[14]

On 22 December 1960 he died in The Hostel of God (now Trinity Hospice) in Clapham. His body was brought back to Norwood for cremation at West Norwood Cemetery.[15] His ashes were then interred beneath the windows he designed in Westminster Abbey.[16]

References

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  4. Anthony Symondson SJ, Unity by Inclusion:Sir Ninian Comper and the Planning of a Modern Church, in Roland Jeffery (ed.) The Twentieth Century Church, London 1998. ISBN 0-9529755-2-1
  5. Basic biographical details of (Sir) John Ninian Comper at the Dictionary of Scottish Architects Biographical Database.
  6. Pevsner & Wilson 2002, p. 797.
  7. Hartwell, Hyde & Pevsner 2004, p. 592.
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  9. Peter Hammond, Liturgy and Architecture, London 1960. p.78
  10. Nikolaus Pevsner Buildings of England: London Except the Cities of London and Westminster, London 1952 p.329
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  15. West Norwood Cemetery registers. Cremations, 29 December 1960
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Sources

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External links