Educated further at London University, his degree equipped him for an initial stint as a schoolmaster before he was ordained at St Asaph Cathedral in North Wales.
Chignell was installed as Dean of Kimberley at St Cyprian's Cathedral on 3 March 1935, as successor to Thomas Claude Robson.
It was "no easy task," John Hunter was to note of Chignell’s career, "to follow so widely loved a man as Dean Robson": but in the six years that he was at St Cyprian’s "he endeared himself to his people."
At the time it was the "only completely electrically operated cathedral organ" in the South Africa: 60 kilometres (40 mi) of wire had been used to make it work.
Cathedral organist Wylie Turnbull, at St Cyprian’s from the 1920s, presented a recital after the dedication service, at which the choir had sung the Te Deum.