Rex Chester MBE May 25 1935 – March 6 2025
Rex's funeral took place on May 27 at the Church of Our Lady, Warnford.
His daughter, Rev Victoria Chester paid tribute: Warnford Park was part of the Warnford Estate purchased in 1935 by Reginald Percy Chester, Rex's father, and was a special place for Rex throughout his life. It was therefore something of a 'homecoming' for Rex to be buried at the church in the middle of the park, where his parents are buried too.
As a child Rex and his father would go to the Park to fish in the lake, or to add a bit more concrete to "repair" the ruins of King John's House just behind the church (concrete was a bit different in those days!) – or with his mother Violet row round its beautiful lake.
Rex moved to Warnford aged four and is where he grew up and to which later life his memories always returned. Rex's school life also began there at Westbury House School, near West Meon, and then to Winchester College where he was a stalwart of the cricket and football XI's. Much to his housemaster's surprise he won a place at New College Oxford to study PPE. Two years of national service with the Wiltshire Regiment intervened before Oxford - two years that were formative experiences not least because in basic training he was thrown together with recruits from all different walks of life for the first time in his life.
The time at Oxford that followed, and his engagement with Christian Teamwork Trust and then the Grubb Institute, were hugely influential in encouraging him to seek horizons beyond Warnford and Hampshire in both the direction of his working life and fostering a strong sense of moral, social and Christian responsibility for the communities around him. From Oxford Rex made London his principal home from where he worked at Donald McPherson, the paint and industrial coatings company built up by his father.
However, even when visits to Warnford in the 1960s and 70s were limited to weekends and school holidays, Rex put heart, soul and resources into helping safeguard its future. By instinct from an early age he was aware that the village was a living entity that would only survive if it retained its vibrancy. He saw people who worked on the estate as being integral to this vision.
(Image: Contributed)
Through his work on cottages owned by the Estate Rex became something of a pioneer on issues of rural housing and employment. He at one time chaired a DEFRA committee on rural housing and development on these issues; indeed all involved in the work of the estate saw their rights and responsibilities as all involved in their work; this stance saw the publication of “The Warnford Charter: Freedom to Depend”, and also led him to gift land for Hanover Cottages development which were built with the specific aim of providing homes for retired rural workers.
Rex was even briefly the local sub-postmaster and opened the Farm Gate farm shop long before one arrived in Ambridge! Rex also donated the land for and built the Warnford Village Playground as a resource for the community and a memorial to his beloved father. His initiative to open up the Park for 'Snowdrop Sundays' each years remains a critical part of the Church’s financial sustainability.
Working during the week at Donald Macpherson and at Warnford at the weekend, were the obligations of duty that were drilled into Rex from his earliest years and hugely informed of his worldview. This didn’t always make it easy for him to see things from the standpoint of others, but no one can deny how much he allowed his life to be shaped in their service – nor how hard he worked to put many good intentions into practical and lasting action that found particular expression in his stewardship of this special place.
Much more about the years at Warnford can be found online at www.warnford.info/blog which Rex’s eldest son Mark created with him and which shows fascinating pictures and early film clips of life on the estate since 1930’s.
Away from work and throughout first half of his life, Rex was an active sportsman – confoundingly a left-handed golfer, right-handed batter, left arm bowler, right-handed squash player and shot! However when he sailed though he was happy to hold tiller in either hand. His cricketing for Hampshire included a first-class debut against the Army and he served proudly as president of the Hampshire Hogs from 1980 to 1982.
All his life Rex was a keen fisherman latterly earning title ‘Smoked Fish Customer of Year’ at Robinsons in Stockbridge for a record number of years. In latter years doing his bit included Olympic levels of litter picking along Garnier Road in Winchester. Rex also valued his membership of both St Peter's Catholic and latterly St Lawrence. Fior several years in the 1980s and 1990s Rex was a Conservative city councillor.
In the last third of his life Rex mused more than once on what might have done if had felt able to exercise more freedom in making his own life choices – and perhaps it was only when he sold Warnford Estate in 1995 that he got a bit closer to doing so by establishing own charity Students Exploring Marriage which provided workshops and opportunities for almost 100,000 students to talk with and learn from married couples about the real joys, trials and experiences of married life, It was through this work with Explore, as it became known, that Rex received an MBE in 2009.
All who loved Rex travelled with him through his own married life. And in his marriage to his beloved Sarah Rex found his soulmate. No one could have been more admiring than Rex of Sarah's work with ex-offenders and the homeless.
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