Stewart Henbest Capper
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stewart Henbest Capper (15 December 1859 – 8 January 1925) was a prominent architect in the Arts and Crafts style closely associated with Sir Patrick Geddes with much of his work mislabelled as Geddes'. Due to ill health he did not achieve much that he might have, and his contemporary Sydney Mitchell completed much of his most public works. His style cleverly mimics medieval and Renaissance details, and, as it sometimes includes either original or faked medieval date-stones, is regularly accepted as being several centuries older than its true age.[citation needed]
In later life he is remembered as Professor Capper due to his academic role at McGill University in Canada. This is often remembered more than for his work in Scotland, and much of his due fame has been laid on the shoulders of his clients and those who completed his works.
Born in Douglas, Isle of Man, the son of Jasper John Capper (1820–1918), he was raised in Upper Clapton in London until his family moved to Edinburgh when Stewart was nine years old, either just before or just after the death of his mother, Harriet Millington Jackson (1820–1870). His father remarried soon after the death, to Anna Coventry Blyth.[1] The family lived at 1 Beaufort Road in the Grange district.[2]
Stewart, and his two brothers, were educated at the Royal High School, where he was dux for the academic year 1874/5. At 16 he then won a place at Edinburgh University and gained a First Class Degree in Classics. The studies included a period attending the university of Heidelberg in Germany, from which it may be concluded that he spoke German competently.
Architecture
Capper then decided to pursue a life in architecture and received a post in the office of John Burnet & Son in Glasgow in 1884. However, ill-health forced him to abandon this role, and he chose instead to act in the role of personal tutor to the only son of Sir Robert Morier a diplomat in Portugal, also acting as Morier's personal secretary. Here he learned both Portuguese and Spanish. After a relatively brief period in this role he moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts as a pupil of Jean-Louis Pascal.[3] He stayed here for 4 years of study, during which time he befriended Alexander Nisbet Paterson, Frank Worthington Simon and John Keppie.
Following the death of his father and inheritance of the house at 1 Beaufort Road,[4] he returned to Edinburgh in 1887 to work as assistant to George Washington Browne where he worked until 1891 whereafter he moved totally to his own practice which he had established in 1888. During this period with Browne he had input into the design of the Central Library on George IV Bridge,[3] the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Wright's Buildings on Bruntsfield Place and the Solicitors Buildings on the Cowgate.
In his own practice he drew in his old friend from Pascal's, Frank Worthington Simon as a partner. Together they quickly came to the attention of the profession, winning a competition for the Hope Chapel in Wigan, and in 1890 Simon exhibited as part of the Edinburgh International Exhibition working with the architect/artist William Alan Carter.
The partnership with Simon was brief and dissolved in 1892, and Capper thereafter involved himself closely in the project ideas of Patrick Geddes who sought to make good use of abandoned and derelict properties in Edinburgh's Old Town to house students for the "Town and Gown University Settlement", which although now viewed largely as a philanthropic and conservationist gesture this was primarily as a money-making exercise. This involved Capper hugely extending the previously very small Georgian terrace at Ramsay Gardens to create a hugely picturesque building now an iconic part of Edinburgh's townscape. This (although now hard to believe) was done as low-cost student housing but incorporated a house for Geddes himself within it. Capper's ill health returned during the project and over-seeing of the completion and final detailing was done by Sydney Mitchell who is often incorrectly given credit for the full project. Together with the Ramsay Gardens project Capper also remodelled Riddle's Court, James Court and several Lawnmarket blocks as part of the same University Settlement concept. During this period Capper employed Ramsay Traquair as his assistant.
