Description

Admin History:

These letters were written by Philip Chignell to his four sisters during The Second World War. Mr Chignell had already lived a full and interesting life before settling in Hessle where he was the organist at All Saints Church from 1901 until 1944. Born in Bedfordshire in 1872 he was a chorister at St. George's Chapel, singing at the wedding of Princess Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria and at the funeral of Prince Leopald, Victoria's youngest son. He knew the musicians Elgar,Walfrod Davies and Arthur Sullivan and after leaving Windsor he became an organ scholar at Norwich Cathedral, then organist at St. Peter's Church, Kirkley, Lowestoft before moving on to Hessle.

In 1911 he undertook a world tour with the Sheffield Choir and it was on this tour that he met Katie Netherwood who was to become his wife. They settled in Hessle and had three sons and a daughter. Philip loved sport, continuing to play bowls almost to the end of his life, and was outstanding at chess. Philip Chignell died on the 3rd January 1947.

The four sisters mentioned in the letters are:

Madge Crimp whose husband was organist at Leominster Priory Chruch

Isabel ( Jezebel in the letters) Jamieson who lived in Australia but was visiting her son in England when the war began

Ruth, his closest sister, a retired headmistress living in Findon, Sussex

Kittie Chaston who lived on Vancouver Island

Each sister received a copy of the letters and Philip filed his copy in a file under the symbol 'BS' in numbered sequence. Between 1 September 1939 and 18 December 1946 he wrote 128 letters to his sisters. Copies of all of the letters are within this collection and have numbers on them as they were placed in the 'BS' series by Philip Chegnill.

The letters have been annotated by Marion Lace when editing them for publication.

Description:

Copies of letters written by Philip Chignell during the Second World War. These letters were used by Mr Chignell's grand daughter in the publication 'From Our Home Correspondent by Philip Chignell'