Sir Ninian Comper (1864-1960)
Influential church architect and furnisher of the Gothic Revival. John Ninian Comper was born in Aberdeen in 1864, the son of John Comper, who was an adherent of the Oxford Movement and ordained into the Scottish Episcopal Church. This Anglo-Catholic influence was influential, and is clear in Comper's adherence to Gothic. He worked in the offices of C.E. Kempe and Bodley and Garner before establishing his own practice in the late 1880s, initially with William Bucknall. Almost all of his work was ecclesiastical, with the notable exception of the Welsh National War Memorial in Cardiff.
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Scenes from the Resurrection of Christ designer: possibly Ninian Comper first half of the twentieth century Church of St Augustine, Rumney, Cardiff sanctuary | |
Christ with St George and St Michael designer: Ninian Comper 1902 Church of St John the Baptist, Newport south wall of the south aisle | |
Christ with the Virgin and Child, St John the Baptist, St Luke and St David designer: Ninian Comper 1915 Church of St John the Baptist, Cardiff east wall of the chancel | |
The Adoration of the Magi with the Annunciation and the Visitation designer: Ninian Comper about 1920 Church of St John the Baptist, Cardiff Chapel of the Order of St John | |
St Helen designer: Ninian Comper 1939 Church of St Peter, Lampeter, Ceredigion south wall of the south aisle (window number: sX) |
Further reading
H. T. Kirby, 'Obituary: Ninian Comper (1864-1960)' Journal of the British Society of Master Glass-Painters, vol. xiii, no. 2 (1960–1), 447–8.
Anthony Symondson and Stephen Bucknall, Sir Ninian Comper: An Introduction to His Life and Work, with complete gazetteer (Reading: Spire Books, 2006).
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