Challinor left school at ten years of age and went to work mak­ing bricks. Then, 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 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 and biography from The Story of Norm­acot, by Mary Wilkinson Freeman (Leek, Staf­ford­shire, United Kingdom: Three Counties Pub­lish­ing Ltd.). Used by permission.

Sources

Music

1. Stories of Jesus