He was a British 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 at 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. was born in Bovey Tracey, Devon in 1861. Little is known of his early life, but from the age of thirteen he served his articles at Rowell & Sons, an architects' practice in nearby Newton Abbot. He then moved to London and after a brief period working for Basil Champneys, joined Bodley & Garner, the firm of prominent Gothic Revival architects G.F. Bodley, Thomas Garner, working alongside another budding Gothic Revival architect, Ninian Comper. While working there Tapper began a romantic relationship with Katherine Jotcham, a showroom assistant at 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 Katherine, who was apparently pregnant - a few months later their first child was born. The couple had two children: a son, Michael, in 1886 (who grew up to become an architect himself), and a daughter, Kathleen, who was born in 1889. 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. In 1928 Tapper was appointed Surveyor to the Fabric of Westminster Abbey. His work there included much restoration work and designing additions to the building, including a new gallery above the roof of the east cloister to connect the Abbey Library with the Muniment Room. Tapper was greatly occupied with the conservation of deteriorating stonework which had been damaged by pollution; the Henry VII Lady Chapel became a particular problem in 1932 when falling masonry forced its closure on grounds of safety. 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. Tapper's Church of the Annunciation, Marble Arch in London (1912–13) is one of his more notable works; the tall red brick structure occupies a limited space in a densely built-up corner of New Quebec Street and Bryanston Street and features an array of flying buttresses. The Mediæval-revival interior is noted for its completely vaulted structure and visual height; the windows are placed high to eliminate street noise, the organ is placed in a gallery above the sanctuary and the nave is dominated by a striking triumphal crucifix atop an arch (Robert Bridgeman of Lichfield). As part of his diploma work for the Royal Academy, Tapper submitted a watercolour of the Annunciation church exterior painted by the architectural artist Charles Gascoyne, indicating that Tapper considered this building to be one of his most successful projects.