Introduction

Biography

Challinor left school at ten years of age and went to work mak­ing bricks. At twelve, he worked in a col­li­ery—first on the sur­face, then full time un­der­ground.

He then went in­to the pot­te­ry in­dus­try, and it was here his mu­sic­al life be­gan—he met a boy who had been a mem­ber of a work­house band, and he gave Chal­li­nor in­struc­tion dur­ing their food breaks. He al­so stu­died har­mo­ny from books and took les­sons when mo­ney be­came avail­able.

While still work­ing full time, he stu­died for the Di­plo­ma ex­am­in­ation of the Roy­al Col­lege of Mu­sic. Af­ter some set­backs, he earned a Ba­che­lor of Mu­sic de­gree in Sep­tem­ber 1897. In 1903, he re­ceived his doc­tor­ate.

By this time he had over 400 com­po­si­tions pub­lished, in­clud­ing the can­ta­tas Ju­dah in Ba­by­lon, The Gar­dens of the Lord, and Be­tha­ny. One of his best re­mem­bered works is a cho­ral ode com­posed about 1930 for the cen­te­na­ry of Jo­si­ah Wedg­wood (of chi­na fame) at Han­ley, near Stoke-on-Trent.

His bio­gra­pher, Ma­ry Wil­kin­son Free­man, writes that Chal­li­nor’s mu­sic be­longs to a po­pu­lace liv­ing in hard times; al­so, that he was the cham­pi­on of a re­li­gious folk tra­di­tion when writ­ing mu­sic for the high spots of the year such as Sun­day School An­ni­ver­sa­ri­es.

Photo & bio­gra­phy from The Story of Nor­ma­cot, by Ma­ry Wil­kin­son Free­man (Leek, Staf­ford­shire, Eng­land: Three Coun­ties Pub­lish­ing). Used by per­mis­sion.