Philip Napier Miles

Philip Napier Miles JP DLitt "h.c." (Bristol) (21 January, 1865 - 19 July, 1935) was a prominent and wealthy citizen of Bristol, UK, who left his mark on the city, especially on what are now its western suburbs, through his musical and organizational abilities and through good works of various kinds. He was the only son of Philip William Skynner Miles (1816 - 1881), a major developer of the docks at Avonmouth, who was the eldest son of Philip John Miles (1773 - 1845) by his second marriage to Clarissa Peach (1790 - 1868), and Pamela Adelaide Napier, daughter of the soldier (distinguished in the Peninsular War) and military historian General Sir William Francis Patrick Napier. He was therefore half-nephew of Sir William Miles, 1st Baronet, half-cousin of Sir Philip John William Miles, 2nd Baronet, both Conservative politicians, and cousin of the fashionable portrait painter Frank Miles. He was educated at Harrow School and Oriel College, Oxford, and was High Sheriff of the City of Bristol in 1915-6.

Life in music

Napier Miles was the last squire of Kingsweston [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/features/2001/04/23/kingshistory/history.shtml "From sovereigns to schoolchildren: A Kings Weston House timeline", BBC website article (24 January 2001)] ] and was prominent in an amateur capacity in the musical life of the city in the early part of the 20th century, having studied in post-Wagnerian Dresden and under Hubert Parry. He was a minor composer gaining modest recognition for his small output. He wrote six operas, three of which remain unperformed and four unpublished. His other works are a sonata for violin and piano, a Fantasia on two Elizabethan themes (by Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Morley), and two early works: a first and only symphony (in C) and the "Lyric overture: From the West Country". His other vocal works consist of songs with piano accompaniment, mostly published, and the school song for the then Portway Senior Boys' School in nearby Shirehampton. Although Kingsweston was known as a welcoming place for musicians and a centre for music, Napier Miles did not court fame as a composer. His works occasionally had performances in his lifetime in London and at the Hereford Festival, and at least one broadcast (of the "Lyric overture"). No recordings of his music are known.

Napier Miles was a friend and supporter of Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose violin rhapsody "The Lark Ascending" was first performed by Marie Hall (with piano accompaniment) in 1920 at Shirehampton Public Hall [ [http://www.digitalbristol.org/members/shireweb/hall/history/building.htm "Shirehampton Public Hall", website article by Ralph Hack (1998)] ] at his instigation. He also founded the Avonmouth Choral Society and was president of the Bristol Madrigal Society (1910-1914). He organized operatic seasons at Shirehampton, later the Victoria Rooms, Clifton, and, in 1926, the Theatre Royal, Bristol, and some of his own operas were staged at these venues. His wish had been to establish an English national opera-house, but it was not to be fulfilled. At Shirehampton, he was openly trying to emulate Rutland Boughton's "village opera" at Glastonbury. For these services to music, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by the University of Bristol in 1925.

Napier Miles' papers are currently deposited with Information Services at the University of Bristol. They include autograph scores, printed works, and correspondence (e.g. with Falla), as well as signed copies of works by Holst, Vaughan Williams, Grainger and John Stainer. It is uncertain whether any of his music has been publicly performed since the commemorative concert at the University of Bristol on 7 May 1935.

Philanthropy

As well as his artistic achievements, Napier Miles' great philanthropy towards the area around Kingsweston include donations of land for the Shirehampton Public Hall in 1903, which is now a grade II listed building, [cite web | title=Shirehampton Public Hall | work=Images of England | url=http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?id=380605 | accessdate=2007-03-16] and to the National Trust in 1918, as well as for various local schools, churches, and sporting activities including cricket and golf. In 1930 he gave land at Sea Mills for homes for World War I veterans, and established covenants which were intended to ensure that only relatively low-density housing was built on it, in line with the ideals of the garden city movement of the time. His philanthropy might be thought of as aesthetic and moral (tending to improve the condition of working people through the provision of space, sport, education and religion); as might be expected from his family links, he was a social and political conservative.

End of the Kingsweston estate

He had married Sybil Marguerite Gonne, OBE, daughter of the eighth Baron de Hochepied Larpent, in 1899, but died childless, and his death occasioned the selling-off of much of the vast Kingsweston estate. His ashes are buried at Henbury parish church, and his grave is marked by the punning family motto "Labora sicut bonus miles": 'Work like a good soldier.' He is commemorated in the name of Napier Miles Road, leading to the gate of Kingsweston (Kings Weston House).

List of Napier Miles' operas

* "Queen Rosamond"
* "Westward Ho!" (1913; performed at the Lyceum, London)
* "Fireflies" (performed Bristol 1924)
* "Markheim" (1919; Carnegie award 1921; performed Bristol 1924; vocal score published by J. Curwen, 1926)
* "Good Friday" (vocal score published by Oxford University Press, 1933)
* "Demeter"

List of Napier Miles' other published works

* Four Songs, poetry by Shelley. C. Jefferys, 1891.
* Hymn before Sunrise for Baritone Solo, Chorus and Orchestra, the words by S. T. Coleridge ... the pianoforte accompaniment arranged ... by S. P. Waddington. Boosey & Co, 1896.
* Fragment of an Ode to Maia. [Four-part song.] Words by Keats. Op. 5. No. 6, etc. Stainer & Bell, 1911.
* Nocturn. [Four-part song.] Words by E. F. Benson. Op. 5. No. 5, etc. Stainer & Bell, 1913.
* Rose cheek'd Laura. [Four-part song.] Words by T. Campion. Op. 5. No. 4. Stainer & Bell, 1916.
* Battle. [Song cycle.] Ten Songs, poems by W. W. Gibson. Op. 7. S. Acott & Co, 1917.
* Music comes. Choral Dance for tenor solo, female chorus and small orchestra, the poem by J. Freeman. Op. 11. [Vocal score.] . Boosey & Co, 1921.
* Battle .... Second Set. Op. 9. Poems by W. W. Gibson, etc. J. Curwen & Sons, 1929.
* Ode on a Grecian Urn. Poem by J. Keats ... For Chorus and Orchestra. Vocal Score. [Pianoforte version by A. Jacob.] Oxford University Press, 1931 [chorus version 1934] .
* In the Belfry. [Mixed voices.] Poem by A. Dobson. Op. 20. No. 1 (The Oxford Choral Songs). Oxford University Press, 1932.
* Four Songs for Baritone Voice & Oboe. The words by Robert Bridges. (1. The Poppy. 2. The Cliff-top. 3. Thou art alone, fond Lover. 4. When June is come.) Oxford University Press, 1933.
* My Master hath a Garden. [Song.] The poem from "Corn from olde Fields," etc. Oxford University Press, 1933.

References

Online

General

* Anonymous (1935) Obituary. "Musical Times" (August), p. 751.
* "Bristol Madrigal Society." Bristol Branch of the Historical Association Local History Pamphlets 15.
* Colles, H.C. (1936) Philip Napier Miles - composer. "Music & Letters" 17 (4), pp. 357-67.
* Grout, Donald J., and Hermine Weigel Williams (2003) "A short history of opera", fourth edition, Columbia University Press, p. 709.
* Helme, Judy (2004) "Shirehampton Public Hall, 1904-2004." Shirehampton: Public Hall Community Association, chap. 3.
* Thomas, Ethel (1993) "Shirehampton story," 2nd edn. Privately published, esp. pp. 40-4.
* Thomas, Ethel (2002) "The continuing story of Shirehampton." Privately published, esp. pp. 21-4, 66, 189-91.