Sir John Ninian Comper
10 June 1864 - 22 December 1960

We are grateful to Father Anthony Symondson SJ
who has written extensively on the Life and Works of Sir Ninian Comper
and from whose articles the following information has been extracted.
[see details in Bibliography below]

John Ninian Comper was born in Aberdeen on 10 June 1864, the eldest son of the Revd John and Ellen Comper. The Revd John Comper was a priest of the Scottish Episcopal Church, having moved to Scotland on the recommendation of Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford and was a northern leader of the Anglo-Catholic phase of the Oxford Movement. Comper's work can only be fully understood within the context of the Oxford Movement and its later developments. Comper's father included many of the leading Anglo-Catholics, clerical and lay, in the south of England among his friends and asked one of them, the liturgist and hymn-writer, John Mason Neale to be god-father to his son Ninian. The family connections helped considerably to form the structure of Comper's early patronage. Since childhood, religion played a decisive part in Comper’s life. Anglo-Catholicism remained the most powerful force in Comper's life and the religious impulse behind his work was always evident and had a direct influence upon his architectural work, filling him with a desire to build and decorate churches as an expression of Catholic truth and a vehicle for Catholic worship.

Comper was educated as a small boy at a prep school in Aberdeen, moving as a boarder in 1874 to Trinity College, Glenamond, where he won many prizes. In 1880, at the age of 16, he had a nervous breakdown, and left later that year, bringing to an end his parents' fervent hope that he would read for holy orders.

He began to draw at the Aberdeen School of Art. His rapidly increasing gifts were recognised by a family friend, Fr George Congreve, of the Society of St John the Evangelist, Cowley, who arranged for Comper to study for a term at the Ruskin School, Oxford while living with the Cowley Fathers. In 1882 he worked for 6 months studying glass-painting when he expressed a desire to become a church decorator; the work coming to an end due to the fact that he was being used as an unpaid draughtsman.

He then began work in 1883 as an articled pupil for George Frederick Bodley and Thomas Garner. These men were the leading church architects of the last quarter of the 19th century bringing the Gothic Revival to a breathtaking point of refinement and perfection. William Bucknall also worked there, with whom he later went into Partnership in 1888.

In 1890 Comper married Grace, the younger sister of his partner, William Bucknall. They had six children: Sebastian, who became an architect - and worked for a period for his father; Mary; Quintyn, who became a school master; Nicholas, the designer of the Comper Swift aeroplane, tragically killed in 1939; Ursula; and Adrian, a designer of medical equipment.

During the course of his work Comper not only restored medieval churches but was given many opportunities to furnish and decorate churches of the Gothic Revival. Details of the Churches he worked on can be found in the articles listed below. St Cyprian's, Clarence Gate, Marylebone (1902-3) was the church which Comper considered his most successful during his partnership with William Bucknall and its design was exhibited in the Royal Academy in the year of its consecration.

Although Comper was a Church architect, he designed only 15 churches - one of which was St Philip's Cosham. The remaining properties were convent or institutional chapels and a few vicarages. He was aware of the reliance on his Partner for his share in their design, for it was Bucknall’s structural experience and skill which enabled Comper's ideas to be turned into reality: Comper's brilliance as a church furnisher was recognised from the beginning. The amount of work completed by Comper was extensive, and almost impossible to record.

The partnership with Bucknall ended in 1905; his nephew, Arthur Bucknall who had joined the practice in 1891, became Comper's amanuensis [one who writes from dictation or copies manuscript].

At the coronation of Edward VII in 1902 the Sisters of Bethany embroidered the Annunciation upon the Cope Hood, divided by an upright of silver-gift, and this was worn by the Bishop of Norwich. The Vestment was made of Russian cloth of gold left over from the coronation of the Czar and brought back by the banker Birkbeck, a passionate student of the Russian Orthodox Church. Comper also designed the binding for the coronation Prayer Books.

In 1912 Comper moved to the Priory, 67 Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood. The enormous and greatly loved garden was filled with plants grown from cuttings brought back from his travels. The Priory remained his home until his death.

Comper established a study at 228 Knight's Hill, West Norwood, near to his own house at that time. The building had a coach house; the stables were turned into a glazier's shop, and a coke-fired kiln was built, with all the windows facing north. One window was specially designed to hoist panels of completed glass into a position convenient for viewing, and at this end the glass-painters worked. The rest of the building consisted essentially of a bench about 40 feet long [12 metres], also facing north, for drawing-boards. The remaining space (it was only 18 feet wide [5.5 metres]) was taken up by chests of drawers for keeping drawings, leaving room for Comper's desk and a bookshelf, and little else, except for a series of framed heraldic garter plates from one of St John Hope's monumental folios. The study was, much to Comper's anger, compulsory purchased in 1946 and it was moved to the Priory. He regarded this as nothing less than confiscation of his property.

Comper's aim was to accomplish the highest standards of perfection, which he achieved by training and maintaining the same body of glass painters, embroidresses, stone and wood carvers, metalworkers and weavers during 72 years' practice. Many worked for him as young men and remained for the rest of their lives ensuring the consistency of perfection upon which he insisted.

Grace Comper died in 1933 and her ashes were buried in the Jesus chancel of St Mary's Wellingborough. After Grace's death, Comper became even more reclusive. He repudiated the Architect's Registration Act, considering architecture as an art, not a profession, and delighted in describing himself in "Who's Who" as "architect, unregistered". He grew increasingly close to the Bucknall family. Arthur Bucknall died in 1952 and was replaced by his second son, John, as the practice's amanuensis.

Ninian Comper was 70 in 1934 and many of his architectural contemporaries died during this decade. His retirement would not have been unexpected but instead his life and work flourished in varied and surprising ways and he remained “in practice” until his death at the age of 96.

In 1938 he was approached for an interview by John Betjeman, then working on "The Architectural Review" and a firm friendship resulted, leading to the publication of Betjeman's major article "J N Comper, Heir to Butterfield and Bodley" in the "Review" in 1939.

In 1950, at the age of 84, Comper received a knighthood. It was Betjeman who organised the testimonials.

Sir Ninian Comper died on the 22 December 1960; the last Gothic Revivalist, heir to Butterfield and Bodley. Curiously, he died on the same day as his life-long companion and closest friend Arthur Bucknall. His ashes are buried in the Jesus chancel in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey beneath his windows of abbots and kings.

Important dates in the Life of Sir John Ninian Comper

Bibliography: