Picture Gallery - 1940s

1940s

Donald Rutter is on the left with the tassel over his eyes. The other boys are Michael Savage (died c. 2015), Giles Robertson and ? Duncan.

St Mary Major Church, demolished in 1970, can be seen through the trees. The Deanery is to the left of the photograph and the cathedral to the right.

Photo and caption from: Don Rutter, treble 1942-48, and Secretary of ECOCA before emigrating to New Zealand in 1996.

sometime between 1945 and 1948

Dr Wilcock conducting; Donald Rutter is in the front row far right at the end.  Counting 3 in from him is Geoffrey Mitchell.

Photograph is taken in front of the organ screen.

Photo and caption from: Don Rutter, treble 1942-48, and Secretary of ECOCA before emigrating to New Zealand in 1996.

1941

David Laurance Bateman, after being installed in 1941, aged 9 or 10. With him are his maternal Grandfather, Charles Bartlett who was manager of the Western Morning News, his mother Muriel Joyce Bateman (nee Bartlett), and his father Charles, then aged 37 and a political and parliamentary journalist in London.

David's father (Charles Bateman) had been a solo chorister at Exeter, and his grandfather (Charles Bartlett) a virger.

Photograph is taken in front of the Chapter House door.

Photo and caption from: David Bateman (sent Nov 2007)

1942, May

Choristers returning from their holiday to find that the School had been bombed in the Exeter Blitz of 1942.

A comment on the choir during the war, from David Bateman, a chorister at the time: "I had been sent to the school to avoid the London blitz but did not return after the school was destroyed in May 1942. Thank God for Easter holidays!" (quote from email sent Nov 2007)

Newspaper cutting supplied by: Don Rutter, treble 1942-48, and Secretary of ECOCA before emigrating to New Zealand in 1996.

1949 - 21st October

Princess (now Queen) Elizabeth visiting Exeter Cathedral on the first day of her royal tour of Devon and Cornwall.

The scene shows the Princess being presented with a stone box by the head chorister. Between the Princess and the chorister, Archdeacon Hall can be seen.

Source: Photo by PNA Rota/Getty Images http://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/3430920/Hulton-Archive

With thanks to Colin Brownlee, of In Quires and Places, for alerting me to this image.