Desmond Chute

He was born in Bristol, the son of James Macready Chute (1856–1912) and his wife Abigail Philomena Henessy (1855–1931).

[12] In a letter of 1928 to Richard Carline, Spencer alluded to a passage in Confessions, a work given to him in 1916 by Chute, as a religious influence.

[17][18] He worked under Gill of a set of Stations of the Cross, for John O'Connor at St Cuthbert's Church in Bradford.

In 1920 Gill and his wife Mary, Chute, Hilary Pepler and Herbert Shove became Tertiaries, joining the lay Third Order of Saint Dominic.

[22] Pepler's St. Dominic's Press published works by McNabb and other Catholic writers, illustrated by Chute, Philip Hagreen and other Ditchling artists.

[25] That year, Chute started to study for the Catholic priesthood, in Fribourg at the Albertinum, the international Dominican priory there.

[29] There Chute knew Ezra Pound, Olga Rudge, and the Tigullian Circle musical society they promoted.

This was during the period 1941 to 1943, and Mary gave an account of him in her memoirs: Thin and very tall, a long, pale face, with lots of hair and a beard (dyed red), melodramatically stretched out on couches with layers of capes and blankets and three kinds of curtains at the windows that had to be drawn at the least change of light outside, a series of eyeglasses and eyeshades and reading lamps.

[34]Another account, by the physician Pietro Berri: ...the figure of a priest, tall, but of a wan complexion, with a beard at one time golden, but gradually streaked with grey, always sporting dark glasses for the greater protection of his sight, or an eyeshade ...[35]Chute supported Mary and her mother when Pound was arrested and deported by the US army.

Some of his papers are held in the Eric Gill Collection at Chichester, and others by his relation, David Charles Manners.