Arthur Kent Chignell

The Master of the Charterhouse with the most unusual CV was Arthur Kent Chignell.  He was born in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, in 1870.  His father was William Henry Chignell who described himself on the 1871 census as a professor of music.  This was an exaggeration.  In 1874 in bankruptcy proceedings he was simply an organist and piano tutor.  After university Arthur became a priest in the Church of England.  In 1893 he was in America and then sailed to Sydney, Australia.  On the leg from Honolulu to Samoa on board the Mariposa he had an interesting time with Robert Louis Stevenson, which he described in a letter to his brother Norman in 1938.  He spent much of the voyage in the company of the writer and his wife.  Arthur said that he didn't realise at the time what a privilege that had been, especially as Stevenson died the following year.

Around the turn of the century, Arthur became Rector of Wallaroo in Australia, where his mother was his housekeeper.  From there he went to New Guinea as a missionary, where he spent seven years.  In May 1914 he learned that his mother had been lost in the Empress of Ireland disaster.  On 2 September 1914 he married Elizabeth Rattigan (a nurse who worked in the same mission) at his church in Samarai, Papua.
In 1911 Chignell published a book, An Outpost in Papua, about his experiences.  He writes vividly about the people, and his affection for them is clear.  His attitude was a little too tolerant for some of his readers, although they seem patronising today.

He published a second book, a history of the New Guinea mission before returning to England with Elizabeth in October 1914.  He seems to have spent a few years in the south where his first three children were born, before applying for the job at the Charterhouse in 1919.  Perhaps the fact that his brother Philip was then living in nearby Hessle influenced his decision.  He got the job and was to be Master for 32 years.

He also had a second job.  In June 1924 he was appointed Chaplain for the Board of Guardians, at a salary of £50 a year.  In April 1927 the Board decided he should resign for failing to carry out the duties he was paid for (they had no power to sack him).  The matter rapidly escalated, and in July a Ministry of Health representative came to Hull to carry out an investigation, which was well covered in both the Hull Daily Mail and the Yorkshire Post.  Chignell was accused of ignoring "danger notices"; the job required him to attend on all workhouse inmates who were seriously ill, and he had put in very few appearances.  He argued that some of the proposed visits would have been pointless, and that there should have been a full-time doctor rather than a part-time chaplain.  Chignell got something of a mauling.  The Mail's report ends with "(Proceeding)" but there were no more stories about the case so we don't know the outcome.  It's impossible to know if the case did permanent damage to his reputation.

In November 1924 Chignell sent an intriguing letter to the Hull Daily Mail.  It appears that a group of students from the Art School were in the Charterhouse painting the chapel.  The head of the school, J J Brownsword, had produced grandiose and expensive plans for murals, including a frieze of "angel faces" and decoration around the pulpit and the doorway.  He also wanted an electric light in the dome to highlight his creation, and elaborate hangings.  Chignell knew that he could not ask the trustees to pay for these so he was asking for public contributions.  There is no follow-up to this and nothing in our records, so perhaps the trustees, mercifully, took the view that it was all rather tasteless and none of it materialised.

A photograph taken in 1930 shows Arthur (left) in the garden of the Charterhouse with his brothers Philip and Norman.  Through the 1930s Arthur found himself short of money.  His salary was well below the normal clerical stipend, and the Charity Commission had ruled that the Mastership was a part-time job and denied him a pay rise.  Chignell supplemented his income by writing for the local paper, editing books and taking Sunday duties in local parishes, but the war put an end to many of those opportunities.  He spent the first months of the war battling unsuccessfully with the Surveyor and trustees to get a proper air raid shelter for the residents.

On 7 May 1941 during a heavy raid on the city a bomb fell close to the Master's house, causing considerable damage, and also causing blast damage to the Charterhouse itself.  Chignell was in bed in his own shelter at the time, described by his brother Philip as "an underground dugout where he keeps his books and his wireless".  He was unhurt and so were residents, but it was the beginning of the end.  Chignell (and, presumably, his wife Elizabeth, though she is never mentioned) moved temporarily into rooms in the main building and the evacuation of the residents began.  For the rest of the year the Master compiled and printed a monthly list of the whereabouts of those residents.  But neither the Charterhouse nor the Master's house could be repaired until after the war.  In fact, it was 1948 before the main buildings were restored and reopened, and Chignell ended his days in rooms there, the house not being rebuilt until 1956.

In 1949, nearing 80 years old, Chignell suggested that he would like to retire but couldn't afford to, and would stay on if he had an assistant.  While the trustees were willing to pay for this the Charity Commission would not give permission, saying rather brutally that if he couldn't do the job he should retire and that there would be no salary increase until a new Master was appointed.  The trustees tried at first to add £150 pa to Chignell's £300 salary (£300 is worth about £12,000 in today's values) but when the CC vetoed this as well they apparently ignored them and Rev Ronald Helm was taken on as Chignell's assistant.  

Rev Chignell on left, Rev Helm on right, 1951

This photo, taken early in 1951, is the last we have of Arthur Kent Chignell.  He died on 25 June that year.  His wife, Elizabeth, died two years later.  Chignell's legacy is that the western end of the rebuilt Master's House was later converted into flats for residents and named Chignell House.