Walter Tapper

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Sir
Walter Tapper
Walter Tapper
Born(1861-04-21)21 April 1861
Bovey Tracey, Devon
Died21 September 1935(1935-09-21) (aged 74)
Dean's Yard, Westminster
NationalityEnglish
OccupationArchitect
AwardsARIBA (1889); FRIBA (1912); President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 1927–29; ARA (1926) FSA; KCVO (1935)
PracticeBodley and Garner; Tapper
BuildingsChurch of the Resurrection, Mirfield (1908)
Church of the Annunciation, Marble Arch (1912–13)
ProjectsLiverpool Cathedral design competition (1901–03)

Sir Walter John Tapper

FSA (21 April 1861 – 21 September 1935) was an English architect known for his work in the Gothic Revival style and a number of church buildings. He worked with some leading ecclesiastical architects of his day and was President of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Tapper was appointed Surveyor of the Fabric of Westminster Abbey and acted as consulting architect to York Minster and Manchester Cathedral
. On his death in 1935 his son Michael Tapper completed some of his works.

Life and career

Walter Tapper was born in

Watts & Co, a church furnishing company which had been founded by Bodley and Garner along with fellow Gothic revivalist George Gilbert Scott. In 1886, he married Catherine Jotcham;[3] a few months later their first child was born. The couple had two children: a son, Michael John, in 1886 (who grew up to become an architect himself), and a daughter, Kathleen, who was born in 1889.[4]

Faced with the responsibility of fatherhood in his mid-twenties, Tapper put off the financial risk of going into business on his own and remained with Bodley & Garner for eighteen years, rising to the role of manager. Throughout this time, he maintained a close business relationship with Watts & Co, procuring furnishings for church projects.

In 1900 Tapper started his own practice, beginning his independent work in Gray's Inn but later moving to St John's Wood, where he worked from his own home at 10 Melina Place.[5]

In 1927–8 Tapper served as president of the Royal Institute of British Architects. His presidential address of 1927 was critical of modern consumerism and mass production, and Tapper cited the absence of a "national virtue of dignity" as detrimental to architectural greatness.[6]

In 1928 Tapper was appointed

Bartolommeo Vivarini (c.1480).[9]

Catherine died suddenly in 1932, and the grieving Walter, unable to remain in the family home without her, was given accommodation in

King George V. Tapper's grave is in the west cloister of the Abbey[10]
and bears the inscription

WALTER JOHN TAPPER K.C.V.O., R.A. 1861–1935 SURVEYOR TO THE FABRIC 1928–1935

As well as the stylistic influences of his contemporaries in architectural practice, Tapper was also affected by the writings of John Ruskin and the Aesthetic movement. He often spoke about love to explain his artistic philosophy, and associated beauty (especially that of medieval architecture) with love and goodness. Tapper was deeply religious, and aimed to express divine and human love through his architecture.[4]

Buildings

Interior of Tapper's Church of the Annunciation at Marble Arch (1912–13)

Tapper's first independent church project was the

Early English style with lancet windows and features a stone relief of the Ascension by Harry Hems.[11][12]

In 1901 Tapper submitted an entry into the design competition for

Norman Shaw; Tapper was shortlisted for the final along with four other submissions from Austin & Paley, Sir Charles Nicholson, Malcolm Stark and Giles Gilbert Scott.[13] Scott's design was selected in 1903, but Tapper's scheme was highly regarded; Sir Charles Herbert Reilly, whose entry for the design competition was also unsuccessful, wrote of Tapper's rejected design, "it seemed to me one of the finest architectural conceptions I had ever seen. I had no idea... that Gothic architecture could be used with such breadth and spaciousness combined with such delicacy and romance."[14]

In 1905 Tapper was commissioned to build a large

property development.[15]

One of his notable architectural achievements is the Church of the Resurrection, at the Mother House of the eponymous Community of the Resurrection, at Mirfield, West Yorkshire. Only the eastern portion of the church was built to Tapper's highly ambitious design which, had it been completed, would have produced a monastic church of a scale hardly seen in England since the Reformation. Begun in 1908, building was stopped because of shortage of funds and by design problems. It was eventually completed by Michael Tapper as a memorial to Charles Gore, theologian, bishop (of Worcester, then Birmingham, then Oxford) and founder of the Community, and whose mortal remains lie in a fine tomb within its walls.

Tapper's

watercolour of the Annunciation church exterior painted by the architectural artist Charles Gascoyne,[16] indicating that Tapper considered this building to be one of his most successful projects.[17][18]

In addition to church building, Tapper was also engaged in ecclesiastical decorative fittings and ornaments. The ornate entrance to the choir at Ludlow Parish Church is his work, as is the gilded altarpiece in St Chad's, Stafford[19] and the organ casing and font cover in St Wulfram's Church, Grantham. He designed a silver processional cross for York Minster[20] as well as the ten oak screens bearing the names of the 1,513 women who died in the line of service during WWI, as part of the Five Sisters window memorial.[21] He also enjoyed a lucrative arrangement with the Gas Light and Coke Company, designing appliance showrooms in the Art Deco Streamline Moderne style.[4][22]

Notable buildings & projects
Photo Building Location Date Notes
Church of the Ascension, Malvern Link Malvern, Worcestershire 52°07′40″N 2°19′52″W / 52.127788°N 2.331237°W / 52.127788; -2.331237 1903 [23]
St Erkenwald's, Southend-on-Sea Southend-on-Sea 51°32′12″N 0°43′26″E / 51.536776°N 0.723936°E / 51.536776; 0.723936 1905–10 Demolished 1995[23]
Church of the Resurrection, Mirfield Mirfield, West Yorkshire 53°40′58″N 1°42′50″W / 53.682707°N 1.713808°W / 53.682707; -1.713808 1908 [23]
Turville Grange
Turville Heath, Buckinghamshire
 1904 Added a "parallel rear wing" to this 18th century country house; listed Grade II in 1955[24]
St Oswald's, Lythe Lythe, North Yorkshire 54°30′24″N 0°41′19″W / 54.506645°N 0.688531°W / 54.506645; -0.688531 1910–11 Rebuild of C13 church[23][25]
Derby Lodge Shipley Estate, Derbyshire 1911
St Stephen's, Grimsby Grimsby 1911–14 [23] demolished 1973/4
Church of the Annunciation, Marble Arch Marble Arch, London 51°30′52″N 0°09′31″W / 51.51444°N 0.15861°W / 51.51444; -0.15861 1912–13 [17]
Guildford Grammar School Chapel Guildford, Western Australia 1912–14 [23]
St Michael's, Little Coates Little Coates 1915 [23]
St Mary's Church, Harrogate Harrogate, North Yorkshire 53°59′17″N 1°33′06″W / 53.987944°N 1.551658°W / 53.987944; -1.551658 1916 Now known as the Kairos Church;[26] closed 2007 owing to structural problems[23][27]
St Mark's, Whiteley Village Whiteley Village, Surrey 1919 [23]
Loughborough Carillon Loughborough, Leicestershire 1919–23
Memorial Cross Lancaster Gate, London 1921 [28]
Nymans Haywards Heath, West Sussex 1920s Stone Tudor-style mansion house; ruined by fire in 1947[29]
Our Lady of Mercy and St Thomas of Canterbury[23] Gorton, Manchester 1927 Now the Mount Olivet Apostolic Church
St Oswald's, Preston Deepdale, Preston 53°46′19″N 2°40′49″W / 53.771882°N 2.68015°W / 53.771882; -2.68015 1934 Original building demolished c.1987 [23]
Newgate, Chester Chester city walls 53°11′20″N 2°53′17″W / 53.18902°N 2.88819°W / 53.18902; -2.88819 1938 Completed after Tapper's death by his son, Michael[30]

References

  • Reilly, Sir Charles Herbert (1931). "XII: Walter Tapper". Representative British Architects of the Present Day. Ayer Publishing. p. 172.
    ISBN 9780836908183
    . Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  1. ^ 1851 and 1861 England Censuses
  2. ^ 1871 England Census
  3. ^ Islington parish records
  4. ^ a b c David Dolan and Leigh O'Brien. "Life and Work of Sir Walter Tapper". Walter Tapper and His Churches. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  5. ^ Reilly 1931, p. 158.
  6. ^ "Walter Tapper Dead at 74 Years". Montreal Gazette (obituary). 19 October 1935. Retrieved 16 September 2012.
  7. ISBN 978-1-78327-420-8
    .
  8. ISBN 1-900289-59-8
    .
  9. ISBN 9781843830375. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help
    )
  10. ^ "Sir Walter Tapper". Westminster Abbey website. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  11. ^ Historic England. "Church of the Ascension including Church Hall to east, Malvern Link (1349465)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  12. ^ Nikolaus Pevsner and Alan Brooks, The Buildings of England, Worcestershire, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007.
  13. ISBN 9780300109108
    .
  14. ^ Reilly 1931, p. 164 & 167.
  15. ^ "St Erkenwald's History – Before Construction". Sir Walter Tapper and His Churches. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  16. ^ "Design for the Church of the Annunciation, Old Quebec Street, Westminster, London: perspective from southeast, c.1912". RA Collections. Royal Academy of Arts. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  17. ^ a b "The Building". Church of the Annunciation website. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  18. ^ Waddell, Sasha (2009). Church of the Annunciation – A Guide. Church of the Annunciation. p. 6.
  19. ^ "Tour of St Chad's". St Chad's Stafford website. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  20. ^ Reilly 1931, p. 164.
  21. ^ G W O Addleshaw (1967). "Architects, Sculptors, Painters, Craftsmen1660-1960 whose work is to be seen in York Minster". Architectural History (Vol.10 ed.). Cambridge, UK: SAHGB Publications. p. 113.
  22. ISBN 9780754606925
    .
  23. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "The Churches". Sir Walter Tapper & His Churches. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  24. ISBN 978-0-300-09584-5
    .
  25. ^ "Church of St Oswald, Lythe". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  26. ^ "Our History". The Kairos Church website. Retrieved 19 September 2012.
  27. ISBN 9780140710175
    .
  28. ^ "Monument: Memorial Cross at Lancaster Gate". London Remembers. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  29. ISBN 9780300096774
    .
  30. ^ Historic England. "The Newgate, Chester (1376379)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 15 July 2012.

External links

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