Ninian Comper

Ninian Comper
The spectacular interior of St Mary's, Wellingborough
Born	(1864-06-10)10 June 1864 Aberdeen, Scotland
Died	22 December 1960(1960-12-22) (aged 96) Clapham, London, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Occupation	Architect
Practice	Bucknall & Comper

Sir (John) Ninian Comper (10 June 1864 – 22 December 1960) was a Scottish-born architect. He was one of the last of the great Gothic Revival architects, noted for his churches and their furnishings. He is well known for his stained glass, his use of colour and his subtle integration of Classical and Gothic elements which he described as unity by inclusion.

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). He was educated at Glenalmond School in Perthshire and attended a year at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. On moving to London, he was articled to Charles Eamer Kempe, and later to George Frederick Bodley and Thomas Garner. His fellow-Scot William Bucknall took him into partnership in London in 1888 and Ninian was married to Grace Bucknall in 1890. Bucknall and Comper remained in partnership until 1905.

His ecclesiastical commissions include a line 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 and 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) and St Cyprian's, Clarence Gate, London; 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 which is now called the Comper Foundation Stage School.