John Tarring, F.R.I.B.A., was an English Victorian ecclesiastical architect active in the mid-nineteenth century in London, Middlesex, Kent, and Devon, England. He is known as the "Gilbert Scott of the Dissenters," as he was the first architect to design a spire for a Nonconformist Church in London, and is thought to have influenced Baptists and Congregationalists to first build in the Gothic style. Most of his commissions were Nonconformist churches, although he had one remodeling commission of an Anglican chapel. He was born in Devon, worked principally in London, and returned to Torquay, Devon, where he died. His firm was variously known as "John Tarring, Esq.," "Tarring & Jones," and "J. Tarring & Son." His son was Frederick W. Tarring.
Tarring designed at least one Irish church building, Trinity Presbyterian Church Cork, (1861) in a Gothic style with a distinctive spire. The interior has a gallery to the rear with a pipe organ installed there in 1904 and seats for a choir, typical of Roman Catholic churches of the locality, although it may have been intended originally to provide free seating for those unable to afford pew rents; the rest of the interior with a central pulpit, no central aisle and no pillars may reflect Tarring's work on non conformist churches and chapels in the South of England. Source: Cromie, Alexander Stuart Presbyterians in the City of Cork Belfast 2004