KEMP,
a surname derived from the Saxon kemp, or cempa, a
solider or warrior, especially one who engaged in single combat, also
the combat itself; hence the Swedish name of Kempenfelt
(battle-field), the well-known name of the British admiral who was
lost in the Royal George at Spithead in 1782; hence, also, the English
camp, and the Spanish Campeador. through the French, we
have the words champion and campaign, from the same
root. In some parts of Scotland the striving of reapers in the harvest
field is still called kemping. In the ballad of ‘King Estmere’
in Percy’s Reliques, the words kempes and kemperye-men
occur for soldiers or men-at arms:
“They had not ridden scant a myle
A myle forthe of the towne,
But in did come the kynge of Spayne,
With kempes many a one.
Up then rose the kemperye-men,
And loud they ‘gan to crye,
Ah! Traytors, you have slayne our kynge,
And therefore you shall die.”
KEMP, GEORGE
MEIKLE,
a self-taught architect, the designer of Scott’s monument at
Edinburgh, was the son of a shepherd on the property of Mr. Brown of
Newhall, on the southern slope of the Pentland hills, which are partly
in Peebles-shire, but chiefly in Mid Lothian. He was born about the
beginning of the present century, and his love for architecture was
first developed by the following circumstance. In his tenth year, he
was sent a message by Mr. Brown to Roslin, about six miles from his
birthplace, and the romantic castle and elegant chapel of that
secluded village struck him with wonder, admiration, and delight.
After receiving but a common education, he was apprenticed to a joiner
at the Red Scaur Head, near Eddlestone, Peebles-shire, and afterwards
was employed as a journeyman with a millwright at Galashiels. He used
to relate that, on first going to the latter place, as he was wearily
pursuing his way on foot along the banks of the Tweed, a carriage came
up behind him near Elibank tower, and drew up on the road beside him,
when he observed that there was one gentleman inside. The coachman,
acting no doubt by the orders of the latter, asked him if he had far
to go, and on learning that he was on his way to Galashiels, he
desired him to jump up beside him, as the carriage was going thither.
The gentleman inside the carriage proved to be Sir Walter Scott, with
whose name his own was afterwards brought into such remarkable
association.
While
residing at Galashiels he had frequent opportunities of inspecting the
ruined abbeys of Melrose and Jedburgh. Subsequently he went to
England, and worked there as a joiner for several years, never losing
an opportunity of seeing any remains of Gothic architecture. The
writer of a short sketch of his life in Chambers’ Journal (for April
21, 1838), to which we are chiefly indebted for these details, says
that on one occasion, when settled somewhere in Lancashire, he walked
fifty miles to York, spent a week in examining the famed minister of
that city, and returned, as he went, on foot. He afterwards removed to
Glasgow, where he worked for four years, and spent much of his leisure
in inspecting its fine old cathedral. A few years afterwards he
executed, at his own expense, a model design for its restoration,
which was placed in the Museum at Glasgow. A set of drawings,
completed by him, were lithographed and privately circulated in a
volume, with appropriate letterpress, at the expense of Mr. Archibald
Maclellan, coach-builder, of Glasgow, who died in 1853, and who was
remarkable for his taste in architecture, though not professionally
connected with the art. With the view of seeing fresh specimens of
architecture he went again to England, and amongst other structures,
visited the cathedral of Canterbury.
Having
formed the design of travelling on the continent, for the purpose of
examining the most celebrated Gothic erections in different countries;
working at his trade, like the German craftsmen, as he went along, for
his support; in 1824 he proceeded to Boulogne, and thence went, by
Abbeville and Beauvais, to Paris, spending a few weeks in each place.
His skill in mill-machinery, and the anxiety of the French to obtain
English workmen in that peculiar department, secured him employment
wherever he went. He began now, for the first time, to use the pencil,
though he had never taken any lessons in drawing, but his enthusiasm
overcame all difficulties, and he improved rapidly as he proceeded in
his delineations.
After about
a year’s sojourn in France, he was recalled to Scotland, by
intelligence of the commercial embarrassments of a near relative. He
subsequently endeavoured to begin business for himself as a joiner in
Edinburgh, but the effort not succeeding, he resolved to relinquish
the business altogether, and support himself by architectural drawing.
He had, in the meantime, studied drawing and perspective regularly and
systematically, and about the year 1830 he proceeded to Melrose, and
took three elaborate views, from various points, of its magnificent
abbey, the architecture of which is the richest Gothic. These were
purchased at a liberal price by Mr. Thomas Hamilton, architect. He was
next employed by Mr. Burn, another eminent architect of Edinburgh, to
execute a model, upon a pretty large scale, of a splendid palace which
he had designed for the duke of Buccleuch. This occupied him about two
years, and when completed, it was placed in the vestibule of the
duke’s palace at Dalkeith. An engraver of Edinburgh, named Johnston,
who had projected a work on Scottish Cathedral antiquities, afterwards
employed him to take some of the requisite drawings of ground-plans,
elevations, and details, a task in which he engaged with the utmost
enthusiasm.
In 1838
premiums were offered for the best design for a monument at Edinburgh
to Sir Walter Scott, and Kemp, at that time engaged in taking drawings
and plans of the abbey of Kilwinning in Ayrshire, was induced to
become a competitor, attaching to his design the assumed name of ‘John
Morvo,’ adopted from an ancient inscription on Melrose Abbey,
apparently over the builder’s tomb.
“John Morvo sometime callit was I,
In Parysse born certainlie,
And had in kepyng al mason work
Santandroys, ye hie kirk
Of Glasgow, Melros, and Paslay,
Of Niddisdaill, and of Galway.”
Out of fifty-four
designs received by the committee, Kemp’s was one of the three most
approved of, to each of which a prize of fifty guineas was awarded.
The committee subsequently advertised for additional competing
designs, and Mr. Kemp having contributed a much improved edition of
his first drawing, it was accordingly adopted by the committee. The
foundation-stone of the monument was laid 15th August 1840.
This picturesque structure, which stands in Princes Street, Edinburgh,
is in the form of an open cross or spire, 180 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.
Under the lower groined arch, in an open chamber, a sitting statue by
Steell of Sir Walter Scott, in his plaid, with his dog Maida crouched
beside him, in grey Carrara marble, is enshrined. Kemp’s name, till
then obscure, at once became extensively known, and he was rapidly
rising into employment as an architect when he was suddenly deprived
of life, before his great work, the Scott monument, was half finished.
On the evening of Wednesday the 6th of March, 1844, he had
proceeded along the Union canal, to meet some boats on their way with
stones from the quarry for the monument, when, missing his footing in
the darkness of the night, he fell into the canal, and was drowned.
His body was not found till the following Monday. He was buried, on
the 22d of the same month, in the West church burying-ground,
Edinburgh, and his funeral was attended from his house at Morningside,
by a very numerous and respectable portion of his fellow-citizens,
including the magistracy of the city, several members of the
presbytery of Edinburgh, the Celtic lodge of freemasons, and many of
the members of the Scott monument committee. Upwards of a thousand
gentlemen were present at his grave. He left a widow and four
children, the eldest a boy of ten years of age.
In his
deportment Mr. Kemp was shy and unobtrusive, but among his personal
friends he displayed a rich flow of conversation. In the ancient
poetry of Scotland he was deeply versant, and occasionally wrote
verses himself, which were said to evince considerable merit.
The Scott
monument was not completed till after his death. It cost £15,650, and
combines the beauties of the most admired specimens of the great
crosses of the middle ages. In the niches are sandstone statues of
some of the more prominent personages in the works of the great
novelist in honour of whose memory it has been erected. The four
principal arches supporting the central tower resemble those of the
transept of a Gothic cathedral; and the lowest arches in the diagonal
abutments are copied from the narrow north aisle of Melrose abbey. The
statue of Scott, fully appreciable for its beauty as a work of art,
and for its correctly imaginal representation of Sir Walter, is
canopied by a grove roof, copied from the compartment, still entire,
of the roof of Melrose choir. In many of the details, capitals of
pillars, canopies of niches, mouldings, and pinnacles, the celebrated
abbey, so much frequented and so enthusiastically admired by Walter in
his lounges around Abbotsford, have been freely followed as a model.
Of all the numerous “monuments of fame” which Edinburgh contains, none
is so highly ornamental or so appropriate to the city as this lofty
and superb structure.
KEMP, KENNETH
TREASURER,
an expert practical chemist, was born in Edinburgh 7th
April 1805. His father was a respectable clothier in that city, and he
was named after his mother, whose family name was Treasurer. He early
directed his attention to the study of chemistry, in the practical
departments of which he proved himself an original and daring
investigator. He became a lecturer on practical chemistry first in
Surgeon’s Square, and afterwards in the university of Edinburgh, and
in experiments on the theory of combustion and the liquefaction of the
gases, he was eminently successful. Of these interesting preparations
he made a brilliant display before the British association at its
meetings in Edinburgh in 1836. He was the first chemist who, in this
country, succeeded in solidifying carbonic acid gas. In his enthusiasm
and firm faith in the yet undiscovered facts of chemical science, he
was accustomed to set forth to his students that they might yet see
him perambulating the streets of his native city, with a stick of
hydrogen gas in his hand; in other words, that he would solidify the
lightest gas in nature. This, however, he did not live to accomplish.
Electricity
and magnetism, in all their forms and combinations, constituted a
favourite portion of his studies, and to him galvanic electricity is
indebted for the introduction of the amalgamated zinc plates into
galvanic batteries, an improvement by which the agency of that
powerful fluid can be modified and sustained almost at pleasure, a
discovery so important as to call forth the following testimony from
Ma. Alfred Smee, the well-known electrician: “Let us never forget to
whom we owe this discovery, which of itself enables galvanic batteries
to be used in the arts. Ages to come will, perhaps, have to thank the
inventor, whom we are too apt to forget, yet, still the obligation
from the public to Mr. Kemp is the same.” He was also the discoverer
of several new chemical compounds, the details of which were published
in Jameson’s Journal of Science, and other scientific periodicals of
the time. Energetic in the pursuit of his favourite studies, and
acute, to an unusual degree, in his perception of the principles of
science, he gave an impetus to chemical research in his native
country, to which the great advancement then and after made in it, may
be chiefly ascribed.
Mr. Kemp
died of an aneurism, on 28th November 1842, aged only 36,
and was buried in the new Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh, where a
tablet was erected to his memory. He was succeeded in the lecture-room
by his brother, Mr. Alexander Kemp, who was lecturer on practical
chemistry in the university of Edinburgh from Kenneth’s death, till
his own, having died at Edinburgh, 30th April 1854, at the
early age of 32. He, too, was distinguished by his extensive knowledge
of chemistry, by his improving and inventing chemical apparatus, as
well as by a thorough acquaintance with mechanical philosophy. He
contributed numerous papers to the scientific journals of the day, and
was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
