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Concept
Ninian Comper
Summary
Sir John Ninian Comper (10 June 1864 – 22 December 1960) was a Scottish architect; one of the last of the great Gothic Revival architects.
His work almost entirely focused on the design, restoration and embellishment of churches, and the design of ecclesiastical 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 styles, an approach he described as 'unity by inclusion'.
Comper was born in Aberdeen in 1864, the eldest son and fourth of the seven children of Ellen Taylor and the Rev'd John Comper, Rector of St John's, Aberdeen (and later St Margaret of Scotland) in the Scottish Episcopal Church. The Comper family were of Norman origin and settled as yeoman farmers in Pulborough, Sussex at the Conquest; nevertheless, Comper's father upheld a romantic notion that the family were descended from noble Huguenots.
Comper's father moved from Sussex to Scotland as a young man in search of work as a schoolmaster with a view to becoming a priest. His lack of a degree from Oxford or Cambridge prevented him from taking holy orders in the Church of England, so he was ordained as a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church. John Comper became a significant figure within the Scottish Church, remembered for his ministry in the slums of Aberdeen and as an important figure in the northern High Church movement.
Comper 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.
William Bucknall and Comper remained in partnership until 1905.
Ninian married Grace Bucknall in 1890. They had six children. The eldest, John-Baptiste Sebastian Comper (1891-1979), became an architect, designing many churches for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Northampton.
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