Douglas George Tanner was born on 5 January 1880. He was articled to Messrs. Cancellor & Hill in Winchester, Hampshire, England for five years and remained as an assistant with the firm until 1909 when he started his own practice in Eastbourne, Sussex. He was in partnership with John Daniel Clarke (1880-1947) in Eastbourne from 1909 to 1912.
Tanner was Surveyor to East Sussex County Council Education Department from 1912, and Chief Architect for the Midlands Region, Ministry of Health from 1919 to 1922. He practised in Birmingham from 1917. From 1922 he was in partnership with Arthur Lindsay Horsburgh (1892-1934) in Birmingham as Tanner & Horsburgh. The partnership was dissolved in 1929 and that year Tanner moved to London where he established a new practice.
Floor plans and a photograph of a house at Edgbaston, Birmingham, designed by Tanner and Arthur Lindsay Horsburgh (1892-1934 are illustrated in 'Decorative Art' 1929 (pp.15, 58). Tanner was architect of the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition at Olympia, London, in 1931. He discussed his plans for the design of this and other exhibitions in 'Designing an exhibition' in Commercial Art June 1931 pp. 235-241
Tanner was elected a Licentiate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (LRIBA) in 1910 and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1929. He died in 1932.
Directory of British Architects 1834-1914. Compiled by Antonia Brodie, et al. Volume 2: L-Z. London; New York: British Architectural Library, Royal Institute of British Architects/Continuum, 2001
'Obituary'. The Builder vol. 143, 7 October 1932 p. 590
'Obituary'. RIBA Journal vol. 40, 12 November 1932 p. 27