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KEMP, GEORGE MEIKLE.—This
architect, whose great work, the Scott Monument, one of the noblest
ornaments of Edinburgh, has secured the admiration of Europe, and the
approbation of the highest judges of architectural excellence in every
country, was the son of a lowly shepherd, who pursued his occupation on the
southern slope of the Pentland Hills. Such a scenery, where nothing but
nature predominated, in the form of bare brown mountains and dashing
waterfalls, was the least of all adapted to create a perception of the
beautiful in art; so that, had not Kemp been born an architect, he would
probably have been to the end of his days a shepherd or a mechanic. But at
the age of ten years, having been sent on a message to Roslin, only six
miles distant, he then, and for the first time, beheld the creative power of
man, in the remains of the ancient castle of Roslin, and above all, in its
exquisite gem, the chapel. The delight he experienced at this new
revelation, and the earnestness with which he gazed at each portion of the
work, not only confirmed his choice of life, but abode with him as vivid
remembrances to the end of his days. The present, however, had to be cared
for in the meantime; and young Kemp, as soon as he was fit for work, became
apprentice to a joiner near Eddlestone; and when his term of service had
expired he went to Galashiels, where he was employed nearly a twelve-month
in the workshop of a millwright. This last-mentioned locality brought him
into the neighbourhood of those districts where some of the richest
specimens of ancient cathedral architecture which our island contains are
all but grouped together; and thus he had many an opportunity of inspecting
the remains of the abbeys of Melrose, Dryburgh, Kelso, and Jedburgh. After
having fully studied these inspiring lessons, until Kemp, the humble
millwright, had become heart and soul an architect, he went to England,
where he worked a short time as a joiner, but omitting no opportunity of
pursuing his natural vocation by studying the remains of Gothic
architecture. A specimen of his zeal in this way was his walking fifty miles
to York, to inspect its cathedral, and afterwards returning on foot. From
Lancashire he removed to Glasgow, where he lived some time as a journeyman
at his craft, and as a student within the massive shadows of the cathedral.
Mr. Kemp came to Edinburgh in 1810 or 1817, and remained in the employment
of the same party, as a joiner, until May, 1824, when he went to London.
During this period he displayed the same bent of mind, as he was in the
constant habit of making excursions into the country, even to remote
districts, to examine some object of interest. A Roman camp, a fragment of
Norman or early Gothic architecture, a battle-field, or the birthplace of
some poet or warrior, all alike interested him. In pursuit of some such
object he would often leave his work for days together. He was fortunately
an excellent pedestrian, and could walk forty miles a-day with ease; for in
those days the facilities of railway travelling did not exist. Kemp was an
ardent admirer of our older poets. Chaucer, Sir David Lindsay, and Drummond,
were his favourites; Burns he could almost repeat by heart; and he wrote
occasional verses himself. Nor did he entirely neglect his musical powers.
He was fond of the violin, and could bring out his favourite Scotch airs on
that instrument with taste and feeling. Kemp, therefore, while following his
humble calling, was recognized by his immediate friends as a man of genius;
and, during the whole period of his residence in Edinburgh, he was on terms
of closest intimacy with the family of his employer, with whom, on all
festive occasions, he was a welcome guest.
Having learned, in this
manner, all that Britain could teach him in the science of Gothic
architecture, Mr. Kemp resolved to carry his researches into a more ample
field. His design was to travel over Europe, inspecting its ancient remains
of architecture, wherever they were to be found, and supporting himse1f,
during his stay in the neighbourhood of each, by working at his ordinary
trade. It was the spirit of the ancient builders, who roamed in companies
from land to land, and whose footsteps a thousand years have not erased—men
who were content to merge their individual names into the band of which they
were a part, and into the art which they so devotedly and disinterestedly
loved; and who cared not, if their works only survived to future ages,
whether posterity should retain or throw aside the memory of those by whom
such permanent sanctuaries for peace and contemplation were created in the
midst of universal strife and havoc. It must have been such men as Kemp who
were the leaders and master-spirits of such bands. In 1824 he commenced his
tour, which extended from Boulogne, to Abbeville, to Beauvais, and Paris,
halting at each place for some weeks, and studying their architectural
remains during every hour of leisure in his handicraft employment. In such a
city as Paris his pecuniary difficulties aught have been increased but for
the demand of English workmen in France for mill machinery; and as Kemp was
skilful in this department, he obtained full and profitable employment, so
that he could confront the expenses of living in the capital, and study at
leisure the details of Notre-Dame, and other, less noted structures. After
two years’ travel of this kind in England and France, Kemp, on returning to
Edinburgh, commenced business as a joiner, but was unsuccessful—and could he
well be otherwise, when his heart was neither in the wood-yard nor at the
planing-board? His hand, indeed, was more conversant at this time with the
pencil than with axe or saw; and he was busy in the study of drawing and
perspective, in which he soon became a proficient without the aid of a
master. Having been unsuccessful in business as a master-joiner, Kemp
returned to his former station as journeyman, to which he added the
employment of an architectural draughtsman; and such was now the superior
beauty and correctness of his drawings, that they soon found purchasers. One
of the commissions of this kind he received was from Mr. Burn, the eminent
architect, by whom he was employed to copy some of the working-drawings for
the palace proposed to be built at Dalkeith, as the future mansion for the
princely house of Buccleueh. Instead, however, of proceeding with the
drawings, he set about modelling a section of the building in wood, and with
such success, and so greatly to the satisfaction of the architect, Mr. Burn,
that it resulted in a commission to do the whole edifice in the same style.
On receiving this commission, he commenced the model with characteristic
enthusiasm, and his own modest apartments soon becoming too small for the
work, the architect’s ample drawing-room was, for the time being, converted
into a workshop, and in it this remarkable specimen of zeal, ingenuity, and
neat-handedness, was brought to a satisfactory conclusion, after occupying
Kemp and an assistant for two whole years. After the miniature palace was
finished, it was transferred to the vestibule of the ducal residence at
Dalkeith, of which it forms an attractive ornament.
Amongst the engagements into
which the occupation of draughtsman brought him, was that of furnishing
drawings for a work illustrative of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of
Scotland, similar to Britton’s "Cathedral Antiquities," projected by Mr.
James Johnston, engraver, Edinburgh. For this his intimate knowledge of
architectural detail eminently qualified him; and he accordingly, during the
years 1832, 1833, executed a number of drawings of singular correctness and
beauty, besides a large series of preparative sketches, embracing Elgin,
Pluscardine, Kinloss, Melrose, Roslin, and other of our ecclesiastical
remains. During the progress of these drawings, Mr. Kemp and the publishers
of the present work became acquainted. After Mr. Johnston’s premature death,
the drawings made for him came into their possession, and Mr. Kemp
subsequently completed, at their expense, the measurements and drawings of
the Glasgow Cathedral, during the years 1834-35. While he was making these
drawings, the project of repairing and completing this beautiful specimen of
early pointed architecture was put forth by Mr. M’Lellan, in Glasgow. This
led Kemp to prepare a design for the restoration and completion of the
building. Fully to exhibit the character of this design, and to demonstrate
his ability to construct it if employed to do so, he, in the years 1837,
1838, and 1839, at much sacrifice and labour, prepared a model of the entire
cathedral, in which so perfectly did the new portions harmonize with the
old, that it would have puzzled any architect, not conversant with the
building as it really stood, to tell what part was old, and what were Mr.
Kemp’s additions. Unhappily, the design would have cost more money to
execute than there was at that time any expectation of obtaining, from
government or otherwise; and it remains only an evidence of Mr. Kemp’s
persevering patience, skill in handicraft, and architectural genius.
Thus matured in taste,
talent, and skill, by an apprenticeship that was unique in the history of
modern architecture, it was now full time that the knowledge of Mr. Kemp’s
abilities should be extended beyond the circle of his admiring friends, into
the world at large. Nothing less, indeed, than a great national work was
adequate to such a genius; but what chance was there that an aproned,
hard-handed mechanic would be intrusted with such a commission, especially
when so many learned Vitruvios were in the field? Happily enough, however,
the chance did come. The more than national, the universal desire to
erect a monument to Sir Walter Scott in the fair metropolis of that country
for which he had done so much, and the proposals that were issued for plans
of the work, excited an unwonted stir of artistic emulation; it was an
opportunity by which the fortunate candidate might link himself to the
undying fame of the great poet and novelist. Fifty-four plans sent to the
head-quarters of the committee of subscribers in Edinburgh were the fruits
of this competition, of which plans there were twenty-two Gothic structures,
eleven statues combined with architectural accompaniments, fourteen Grecian
temples, five pillars, one obelisk, and one fountain. Amidst such a
profusion the committee made no decisive choice; but, in terms of their
agreement, they selected the best three for the prize of £50 a-piece, and
laid themselves open for fresh competition. On the three designs thus
distinguished above the rest, two were by eminent English architects, and
the third by some individual who as yet had no name of his own, or was shy
of bringing it into notice, for he signed himself John Morvo. Who was this
John Morvo? It was no other than Kemp himself, who had thus come timidly
forward, and secured a safe retreat in case of failure. In five days he had
drawn the plan, during which period he had suspended his work on the model
of the Glasgow Cathedral, with which he was at this period occupied; and as
soon as it was done he resumed his labour, apparently thinking no farther of
a trial in which the chances were so hopelessly against him. In this mood he
trudged home from Linlithgow on the evening of the day of decision, and on
crossing his threshold was met by his wife, with news of the three lucky
candidates, which she had learned from an acquaintance, and whose names she
repeated. What a happy moment it must have been for both when the real John
Morvo was revealed!
As the lists were now opened
for a second trial, Kemp, animated by his late success, was ready to resume
it with double ardour. His first plan had been a tall Gothic tower or spire,
whose original conception and details he had adapted from Melrose Abbey, a
structure the lines of which had been for years impressed upon his memory,
and of which, also, three drawings that he had executed in 1830 first
brought him into notice as an architect in the highest sense of the term.
Adopting his earlier design as the groundwork, he now produced such an
improvement upon it as secured for it the choice of the whole committee,
with the exception of only two dissenting voices—one on the plea that Kemp
was unknown, and the other that his plan was a plagiarism. The declaration,
however, of the committee, that the "design was an imposing structure of 135
feet in height, of beautiful proportions, in strict conformity with the
purity in taste and style of Melrose Abbey, from which it is in its details
derived," and the attestation of Mr. Burn, who expressed to the committee
"his great admiration of the elegance of Mr. Kemp’s design, its purity as a
Gothic composition, and more particularly the constructive skill exhibited
throughout in the combination of the graceful features of that style of
architecture, in such a manner as to satisfy any professional man of the
correctness of its principle, and the perfect solidity which it would
possess when built"—these testimonies sufficed, in the first instance, to
show that Mr. Kemp’s plan was a congenial inspiration, not a plagiarism, and
that, if he was still unknown to the world, he ought to be so no longer. But
who would now think of adducing such frivolous objections, with the
testimony of the whole world against him? The Scott Monument has been
visited from every land; engravings of it are diffused over the wide earth;
and as long as it stands in its majestic and imposing beauty, the pilgrims
of future centuries, who gaze upon it in silent admiration, will connect the
name of its builder with the thought of him whom it commemorates.
Mr. Kemp had thus passed, by
a single stride, from the condition of a humble mechanic to the highest rank
in architectural talent and distinction; and having won such an elevation
while life was still in its prime, a long perspective of professional
achievements, and the rank and profit by which they would be accompanied,
was naturally anticipated for him by his friends, and perhaps by himself
also. The building, too, which he had planned, was rapidly rising from base
to summit, while at each step the public eye detected some new beauty, and
waited impatiently for the completion. But here the life of the artist was
brought to a sudden and most disastrous termination. He had been absent from
home, employed in matters connected with the structure; and, on the evening
of the 6th of March, 1844, was returning to his dwelling at
Morningside, through Fountainbridge, when, in consequence of the darkness of
the night, he had diverged from the direct road, and fallen into the
canal-basin at the opening. His body was found in the water several days
afterwards, and the whole city, that had now learned to appreciate his
excellence, bewailed the mournful event as a public calamity. It was
intended to deposit his remains in the vault under the Scott Monument, as
their fitting resting-place; but at the last hour this purpose was altered,
and the interment took place in St. Cuthbert’s church-yard; while every
street through which the funeral passed was crowded with spectators. Such
was the end of this promising architect, when his first great work, now
nearly completed, surpassed the latest and best of those of his
contemporaries, and gave promise that architecture would no longer be
classed among the artes perditae in Scotland. Mr. Kemp was married in
September, 1832, to Miss Elizabeth Bonnar, sister to the eminent artist, Mr.
William Bonnar. He left four children, two boys and two girls, three of whom
survived him. His eldest son, a student of architecture, died in December,
1853, at the age of twenty. He was a youth of rare promise and amiable
manners, inheriting all his father’s genius and enthusiasm for art.
Biographical Sketch of
George Meikle Kemp
Architect of the Scott Monument, Edinburgh by Thomas Bonnar, FSA Scot (1891)
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