VeN A W CHUTE
PARISH VICAR 1954-58

Anthony William Chute was born on 17th December 1884 at The Vyne, Sherborne St John. He was the last of four children (third son) of Chaloner William Wiggett Chute and Eleanor Jane Portal.

Anthony was educated at Winchester, where, in the 1901 Census, he is listed as one of two patients in "The Sickhouse" of St Mary's College. From Winchester, he went on to Magdalen College, Oxford to study History, receiving a BA in 1908 and an MA in 1910. He then studied at Cuddesdon Theological College.  From there, as a Deacon, he became a Curate at the Winchester College Mission Church in Rudmore, Portsmouth in 1911, where he was made a Priest the following year.

 Rev Chute's curacy at Portsmouth lasted until 1919, although from 1916 he was appointed as a Temporary Chaplain to the Forces in the Royal Army Chaplains Department and saw active service in France, Belgium and Italy. The London Gazette reports that Rev Chute was awarded an OBE in the 1919 King's Birthday Honours list "For valuable services rendered in connection with military operations in Italy".

From 1919 to 1925, Rev Chute was Vicar of St Oswald's, West Hartlepool, during which time he was initiated into Connaught Lodge of the Freemasons. For the four years after his time at St Oswald's, he held the position of Fellow and Dean of Divinity at his former college, Magdalen, Oxford. He then became Vicar of Highfield (also known as Christ Church, Portswood) near Southampton. 

Outward and inward passenger lists for August 1933 show Rev Chute sailing to Las Palmas and back in company with his brother, Rev John Chaloner Chute (an assistant master at Eton College) and his wife, Violet, and a Mrs Beatrice Barker, whose home address is "Redlands" in Sherfield-on-Loddon. 

He remained at Highfield until 1936 when, following the resignation of Rev Boustead, he was appointed Basingstoke's Parish Vicar. It is said that on his arrival in Basingstoke, Rev Chute dismissed the curates appointed by his predecessor and appointed new staff. One of the new curates was Rev G W O Addleshaw, who had served under Rev Chute at Highfield and would be the Priest-in-Charge at All Saints' from 1936 to 1939. 

As Parish Vicar, Rev Chute resided at the (old) Rectory, now known as Chute House, just north of St Michael's Church and south of the site of May's Brewery. That original Rectory had been built in 1773 and had been the residence for a line of Parish Vicars. Rev Boustead (Rev Chute's predecessor as Parish Vicar) organised an annual party in the grounds with a pageant in the evening during the mid-summer period, and this event took place right up until 1966, some 30 years after he had left.

The 1939 Register shows that the residents of the Rectory at that time included Rev Peter de Deune May (reflecting the practice of unmarried parish curates lodging in the Rectory). As well as the staff of Parlour Man, Cook and Between Maid, two 16-year-old scholars are also residents. One wonders if the boys were still at the Rectory when a bomb fell in its grounds in January 1940.

Rev Chute (who became "Venerable" in 1948 on his appointment as Archdeacon of Basingstoke) oversaw the appointment of various curates across the parish (St Michaels. All Saints, May Street Mission, Reading Road Mission, etc), although from his notes in the Basingstoke Parish Magazine as researched by John Pearce, maintaining a full clergy staff appears to have become more challenging from the 1940s. This situation appears to have come to a head with the departure of Rev R H Arnold from the post of Priest-in-Charge of All Saints' in 1954. No full-time curate was appointed, and from 1954 the overall responsibility for All Saints' rested with Ven A W Chute until his death in 1958.