THE PASSING OF NEVILLE ALBURY OF CHIPPINGHAM

The following observance was published in a voice note by Fred Mitchell, Chairman of the PLP and MP for Fox Hill on Friday 23 October 2026 on the passing of the late Neville Albury of Chippingham:

 I recently learned that one of my father’s last contemporaries, Neville Albury died, He was 97 years old. I express publicly my condolences on the passing to his daughters and son.

I mention this, because while on assignment in Boston, one of the Foreign Service officers, Casey Sands indicated that he’d grown up in Chippingham, and my reflection and reaction was that this was a real neighbourhood where all the families knew each other. 

My mother ended up, because her mother had passed away, on her return from New York, where she was at school, to live with my grand aunt Olive in Chippingham. She joined the Holy Spirit Anglican church, which much like Saint Margaret’s in Kemp Road was the centre of cultural life. Neville Albury lived in Chippingham. My godmother Setella Cox nee Dillet, lived down the street and Neville and his wife Barbara lived across the street from Setella, and this was in walking distance of Holy Spirit where my mother and father worshipped, and my mother was one of the organists,

Keith Archer, Dolores Archer, the Darlings, the Grangers, the Symonettes, the Campbells, the Currys, the Hannas, the Bastians and Anthony Bostwick were all well-known people and families who lived there. The integrity of the neighbourhood remains today as part of Sebass Bastian’s Fort Charlotte constituency. 

Neville Albury will be buried from Zion Baptist church on Sunday 1 November 2026.

I remember the pure joy in his household, when his one son was born, and it was a joy to run into him as he worked around the funeral homes in his later years. I remember him putting the roof extension on our home in Collins Avenue, when I was a teenager.  Rest in peace, Neville Albury, end of an era.