“Turner At Chelsea” does genuinely seem to be a long-lost and forgotten play about the famous painter and his life in Chelsea. An exploration of digital newspaper archives in the UK does not provide any evidence of professional production; nor any reviewing of the script’s publication.

Paterson’s Publications were clearly supplying the ‘Amdram’ market and perhaps additionally repertory and touring theatre companies travelling British regions.

Newspapers local to Chelsea have no reference to it.

The booklet is undated though the bibliographical specialist provider suggests it was published circa 1920, or indeed sometime later in the 1920s.

It seems to be one of a series of short one act plays on the lives of famous English painters written by Mary Greene.

The other titles relate to Blake, Constable, Romney, Reynolds, Hogarth, Gainsborough, Morland and Crome- all indicating Mary was a consistent and extensive author.

On first reading Turner at Chelsea, it is clear Mary Greene knew Chelsea well, and the dialogue has a convincing flavour of mid-nineteenth-century riverside life. The references to Turner, Mayall and early photography are particularly interesting and the result of informed research.

She captures the language and atmosphere of the working-class nature of the community of the World’s End area of Chelsea where Turner’s lodging house was actually situated up until his death in 1851. It was nowhere like the multimillion pound high end Kensington and Chelsea riverside real-estate of today.

In this one small publication running to sixteen pages of text and musical notation, we have the following original historical resonances:

• Mary Greene, an almost forgotten playwright whose connection with Graham Greene is only one part of her story.
• Cecily Muggeridge, a Kensington and Fulham-based composer whose contribution would otherwise remain almost invisible.
• William Mayall, appearing in dramatic literature because of his connection with Turner and photography.
• Nancy Booth (Sophia Booth) and Mrs Danby, represented through the lens of 1920 rather than Victorian biography.
• Paterson’s Publications, illustrating the sort of publishers who supplied amateur dramatic societies between the wars.

-o-

The Historical background and context

J.M.W. Turner spent the final years of his life living a double life in a modest cottage in Chelsea, entirely detached from his fame as England’s greatest landscape painter. To the local boatmen, tradespeople, and urchins of the area, he was known simply as “Admiral Booth” or “Puggy Booth”—supposedly a retired, eccentric old seadog who had fallen on hard times.

This hidden life allowed Turner to escape the suffocating pressures of the Royal Academy and the London art market, spending his twilight years immersed in anonymity and his obsession with light and water.

The Genesis of the Pseudonym
The alias came directly from the love of his later life, Sophia Caroline Booth, a twice-widowed landlady. Turner first met her in the late 1820s while staying at her seaside guesthouse in Margate, Kent. After her second husband died in 1833, Turner became her companion. When they relocated back to London, Turner adopted her surname to completely shroud his identity. Because of his short, stocky build, ruddy complexion, beak-like nose, and rolling gait, locals naturally assumed he was a retired naval officer, earning him the title of “Captain” or “Admiral” Booth.

The Chelsea Hideaway
In 1846, the couple rented a small, unassuming terraced house at No. 6 Davis’s Place (now 119 Cheyne Walk in Chelsea). The house was deliberately chosen for its geographic perks:
The Thwarted Riverside View: The cottage sat directly on the riverfront, looking across the Thames towards Battersea.

The Custom Rooftop Gallery: Turner had the roof of the cottage flattened to build a small balustraded gallery. He would climb up at dawn and dusk, wrapped in a blanket, to watch and sketch the shifting Thames mist, sunsets, and storms without being recognised.
The Secret Studio: While Turner maintained his official, grand (but decaying) town-house and gallery in Marylebone, he kept a secret stash of oil-on-paper sea studies at Chelsea that were only discovered after his death.

How the Secret Was Blown
Turner successfully maintained this deception for five years. However, by late 1851, the 76-year-old artist grew gravely ill and stopped visiting his main residence.
As the story goes, his long-time London housekeeper, Hannah Danby, became deeply worried by his months of absence. Searching through the pockets of one of his old suits, she discovered a scrap of paper with the Chelsea address scribbled on it. She travelled down to the riverfront and successfully tracked him down just days before his death, alerting his cousin and solicitor to his location.

The Final Words
On 19th December 1851, Turner passed away “without a groan” in his small bedroom overlooking the Thames. Right before he died, the window blinds were reportedly opened so the winter sun could shine across his face, prompting his legendary last words: “The Sun is God.”

Only after his death did the shocked Chelsea neighbours realise that the quiet, grumpy old sailor they called “Admiral Booth” was actually the wealthy, famous genius of British art.

The Erotic Sketches

Mary Greene’s short one-act play does not deal in any way with the discovery of J.M.W. Turner’s erotic sketches after his death. These provoked severe, unfavourable comments from his contemporaries, most notably from the art critic John Ruskin. Walter Thornbury also referenced Turner’s “sensual” vices in his 1862 biography, which contributed to and fuelled public disgust.

John Ruskin’s Condemnation
John Ruskin, Turner’s greatest champion, was deeply traumatised when he found the erotic sketchbooks while cataloguing the Turner Bequest. Unable to reconcile the spiritual genius of Turner’s landscapes with his explicit private art, Ruskin made several highly unfavourable remarks:

The “Failure of Mind” Label: Ruskin wrapped a bundle of the explicit drawings in brown paper and explicitly labelled them as “kept as evidence of a failure of mind only.”

The Letters to the National Gallery: In an 1858 letter to Ralph Wornum, the Keeper of the National Gallery, Ruskin wrote that the works were “assuredly drawn under a certain condition of insanity.” He claimed in the letter that he had burned them for the sake of Turner’s reputation.
The “Shameful Sort” Comment: Author Frank Harris later reported a conversation where Ruskin described the sketches as “painting after painting of Turner’s of the most shameful sort—the pudenda of women—utterly inexcusable and to me inexplicable.”

Walter Thornbury and the Media
While Thornbury did not catalogue the secret sketchbooks himself, his sensationalised biography The Life of J.M.W. Turner (1862) leaned heavily into Turner’s secretive personal life. Thornbury detailed Turner’s hidden domestic arrangements in Wapping and Chelsea, where he lived under pseudonyms, drinking heavily and indulging in what Victorians deemed “low” and “degraded” sexual behaviour. These biographical revelations invited widespread media expressions of disgust regarding Turner’s morality.

The Twist: The Great Bonfire Myth

For over a century, art historians believed Ruskin actually burned the drawings. However, in 2004, Tate curator Ian Warrell proved the bonfire never happened. The prudish Ruskin had simply hidden them away using complex number codes to bury the evidence.

Today, the collection is fully intact, openly celebrated, and housed safely at Tate Britain. You can view the full context of these sketches in the book Turner’s Secret Sketches by Ian Warrell.

Who were Mary Greene and Cicely Muggeridge?

A substantial clue as to the identify and life of Mary Greene is disclosed in a small paragraph published in the Daily Express for 9th January 1940:

“Never too Late

At the advanced age of seventy-nine, Mary Greene, of Harston, Cambridgeshire, launches her first play on the radio public.

It’s about William Blake, the poet-artist, and you hear it on January 19. It was sent in by her nephew, Graham Greene- was accepted on sight by producer Stephen Potter- and now Mary Greene, encouraged, is trying her hand at hit-song writing.

So remember, you would-be playwrights and song-wrights- there’s still time….”

The half hour live radio production was indeed broadcast by the BBC’s Home Service and is fully archived and credited in the edition for the Radio Times for January 12th 1939. Her play ran from 3.30 p.m. on Friday 19th 1940 and followed the hugely popular Henry Hall And His Orchestra programme- thus ensuring a high audience for a Friday afternoon.

“Basil Sydney as William Blake in ‘THE GREAT MAN SPEAKS’

BBC Home Service

First broadcast: Fri 19^th Jan 1940, 15:30 on BBC Home Service Basic View in Radio Times

Written by Mary Greene. Produced by Stephen Potter

Cast :

Catherine Blake: Gladys Young

Fuseli: Howard Marion-Crawford

Sir Anthony Hone: Phillip Leaver

Sam Cutter: Ivor Barnard

The scene is in Blake’s tenement room in South Molton Street, about the year 1817.

-o-

Mary Charlotte Greene was born in 1860 and lived most of her life with her brother Sir William Graham Greene and sisters Florence and Helen at Harston Hall, Harston, Cambridgeshre.

Sir William, a Justice of the Peace and County Councillor, bought the house in 1893 and helped establish the Naval Intelligence Department prior to the Second World War.

Their nephew, the author Graham Greene, used to come to Harston House to spend his summers with Sir William and Mary. The garden at Harston House provided the setting for his 1963 short story “Under the Garden.” According to Graham Greene’s description of his childhood:

“It was at Harston I found quite suddenly I could read — the book was Dixon Brett,
Detective. I didn’t want anyone to know of my discovery, so I read only in secret, in a remote
attic, but my mother must have spotted what I was at all the same, for she gave me
Ballantyne’s The Coral Island for the train journey home — always an interminable journey
with the long wait between trains at Bletchley…”

It seems likely Sir William Graham Greene was an influential family connection leading to his novelist nephew Graham Greene joining the Secret Intelligence Service SIS/MI6 during the Second World War.

Mary is listed as resident at Harston House at the time of the late September 1939 National Register, and the 1921 Census.

She died in 1951 and was buried in the churchyard of All Saints, Harston on 20th December 1951.

Local historian in Harston village John Roadley has written a short biography on Mary at: https://www.harstonhistory.org.uk/content/people/surnames-g-k/mary-charlotte-greene-1860-1951

This reveals that Mary was known to her family as “Polly” and she was as much an artist as she was a writer. There is an unpublished typescript by Mary Greene titled The Joy of Remembering, completed in 1941 and has been archived by the Cambridge Collection.

She taught art to local children, regularly exhibiting in Cambridge and taking a leading role in the Cambridge Drawing Society where she was President between 1926 and 1929. She exhibited in London and Chris Pain has established she exhibited three times at the Royal Academy and was impressed by her painting of a view of the Chelsea Waterfront in 1933.

While her more famous nephew Graham enabled the production of one of her plays with BBC Radio in 1940 when he wrote about her in his book A Sort of Life he was not particularly flattering though the familiarity in the language may well have been a mask for affection:

“‘…dear muddled-headed Polly who painted bad pictures and wrote ambitious plays for the village institute (the whole conflict between Christianity and Paganism in Northumbria she managed to contain in a one-act piece with fifty characters).”

The Harston Village website has produced a page with links to Mary’s paintings at https://www.harstonhistory.org.uk/content/new-contributions/mary-greenes-paintings

It is well worth looking at https://d38vbsx6n244kd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Mary-Greene-paintings-of-London-Copy.pdf which includes “Thames at Chelsea” featuring an impressionistic Chelsea Old Church and “Chelsea Waterfront & Battersea Power Station 1933.”

It can certainly be said she was positively influenced by J.M.W Turner and I would certainly not agree with her nephew that she “painted bad pictures.”

-o-

Cecily Muggeridge was a blacksmith’s daughter born in Sussex most likely 1886 though other public records give the year of her birth as 1885 and 1889. She is first recorded as a professional pianist living with her uncle John Cornwall in Horley, Sussex in the 1911 Census.

By 1921 she is 35 years old, living and working as secretary and housekeeper to Alexandra Gorke, then 59 years old and a teacher of dramatic arts at 8 Talgarth Road in West Kensington.

In 1929 it seems the land registry for the address has been changed to her name.

Throughout the 1930s the local Kensington newspapers report the performances of her choral society called the Cecilians and her teaching and collaboration with the linguist and writer Vera Morrogh. They are living together at 82 Warwick Gardens in Earls Court W14 at the time of the September 1939 National Register.

On 19th December 1934 they put on the “highly novel entertainment… of a musical interlude arranged by Cecily Muggeridge and a very original play, written and produced by Vera Morrogh” at the Imperial Institute Theatre in South Kensington.

Earlier in 1934 the Sevenoaks Chronicle reported on July 4th they put on a large production at the Leigh Conservative Fête of “the play ‘Love at the Fair’ which had been written and produced by Vera Morrogh, with songs by Cecily Muggeridge… The scene of the play was Camberwell Green, and the period 1850. The London Cries were very effectively reproduced, and the production as a whole was a wonderful success, and the characters played their parts with real understanding and with enjoyment.”

During the 1930s, the Kensington Post regularly runs adverts for ‘”The Cecilians,” 82, Warwick Gardens, Kensington (Wester 0448). Pianoforte, singing, coaching for examinations, festivals, Glee classes. CECILY MUGGERIDGE. Languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish), VERA MORROGH. Guitar band or private lessons. Apply above or to MARY LINDSAY, 26 Onslow Square, Kensington 3627.”

The public records report the death of Cecily Muggeridge at the age of 72 in Fulham on 25th March 1958 leaving an estate in terms of effects valued at £7,101 and ten old shillings.

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i

TURNER AT CHELSEA

A half-hour Play
in one Scene

by

MARY GREENE

Copyright.
All Rights
Reserved

Price 1/6

────────────────────────

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER
Born 1775; died 1851

────────────────────────

PATERSON’S PUBLICATIONS LIMITED

LONDON: 36, Wigmore Street, W.1.
EDINBURGH: 27, George Street.

NEW YORK:
Carl Fischer, Inc., 62, Cooper Street.

TORONTO:
Anglo-Canadian Music Co., 144, Victoria Street.

WELLINGTON, N.Z.:
Chas. Begg & Co., Ltd., Manners Street.

SYDNEY:
John F. Dean & Co., 324, Pitt Street.

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ii

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER.

Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in 1775 in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. His father was a barber. The boy began to make drawings very early and his father displayed them in his shop to amuse the customers. The first known drawing by him that exists was done of Margate Church when he was nine years old. He had next to no schooling but he was placed while still very young with an architectural draughtsman and soon began to wash-in backgrounds for architects, to colour prints and make drawings under Dr. Munro of Adelphi Terrace. There he met and made friends with Girtin the watercolour artist and went out sketching with him. At fourteen years old he was accepted as a student at the Royal Academy and a year after exhibited a view of the Archbishop’s Palace at Lambeth. After that he began drawings of picturesque scenes in England and Wales, tramping on foot from place to place. In 1802 he made his first tour on the continent but did not go to Italy until 1819. The architectural and pastoral scenery of Italy touched him profoundly and its light and colour is reflected in his work. In 1830 his father died. This loss was very bitter to him. He had never married and his father had lived with him in his house in Queen Ann Street and his housekeeper Mrs. Danby took care of them both. The lonely man had only his art to console him. He worked with growing power in light and colour to almost the end of his life when his health and spirits failed. He was much weakened by exposure when sketching as when he caused himself to be strapped to the mast of a smack in order to study the effects of a snow storm and gale combined with the signal lights of a ship in distress. He grew latterly into the habit of disappearing at intervals no one knowing where. At last Mrs. Danby found a letter in his greatcoat pocket and he was traced to Chelsea. He was living in a poor lodging-house by the Thames kept by a Mrs. Booth. The boys of the street had called Turner Captain Booth, thinking he was an old skipper returning to his home every now and then. The name stuck to him and was not contradicted. He was found in Chelsea on the 18th of December, 1851, and on the following day the world’s greatest landscape painter died on a truckle bed in the attic of a low riverside lodging-house. He was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. He left a fortune of £140,000.

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iii

People represented in the Play:

Mrs. NANCY BOOTH …………………….. A lodging-house keeper

Mrs. KESIAH GRANT }
Mrs. LYDIA SMITH } ………………….. Friends of Mrs. Booth

Mrs. DANBY …………………………… Housekeeper to Turner

A SINGER ……………………………. A poor woman of the streets

TILLY }
SALLY } …………………………….. Passers by

WILLIAM MALLORD TURNER ……………….. The Artist

Mr. MAYALL ………………………….. A Scientist, a developer of the invention of photography

A DOCTOR …………………………… A non speaking part

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SUGGESTIONS FOR COSTUMES

I make these suggestions although the colour of the play, should, if possible, depend on the lighting.

WILLIAM TURNER.—He is very much bundled up in an enormous great coat. He has a soft felt hat.

Mr. MAYALL.—Under the overcoat of the period little need be seen of his suit. His trousers are tight round his ankles and his hat is the old-fashioned chimney pot.

Mrs. BOOTH.—A full gathered brown wool dress. A shawl, old and dark, and a brown bonnet.

KESIAH.—A red full dress, a large bonnet with a big bow on it and a bright check shawl.

LYDIA.—A grey dress not very full, a small dark bonnet and a scanty black cape.

SALLY.—A dark green spotted dress, a brown jacket and a little poke bonnet.

TILLY.—A crimson purple dress, a knitted spencer and a wide hat. She should be smarter than Sally.

1

TURNER AT CHELSEA.

Scene: A street bordering the Thames. Outside Mrs. Booth’s Lodging House, which takes up the back of the stage.

(The sides of the stage might represent old shedding or worn-out trees, for the house stands at the back of a yard facing the street. There are three entrances, R., L. and C. The central one is from the doorway and it has near it a notice “Lodgings to Let.” Above the door is a little window with curtains drawn back. A bench with a back to it is centre-forward. TILLY is seated on the bench looking at a bunch of patterns of coloured materials. Enter SALLY, R.)

Sally: Lor’, Tilly! Whatever are you doing in this forsaken old street?

Tilly: I’m looking at patterns. It’s light here where it’s open to the river. What do you think of them, Sally?

Sally: You are choosing a new dress, I suppose?

Tilly: Yes. What do you think of these patterns?

Sally: They are all much too light and bright. The colours will fade.

Tilly: Well, as I am going to make the dress myself, I can please myself. I want the colour light and bright even if it does fade.

Sally: They are not bad stuffs. You didn’t get these patterns from Chelsea, did you?

Tilly: Yes, I did; in spite of the fact that Chelsea is a hole-in-the-corner place—no good for shopping as a rule.

Sally: Wretched for anything! Look up the river—miles of ugly mud. Look down the river—worse mud with lots of old boats sticking in it like dead flies.

Tilly: Look behind you, Sally! Mrs. Booth has put up a new sign.

Sally: So she has.

Tilly: I wonder if it will attract anyone to her tumble-down old lodging house.

Sally: She has one lodger at any rate.

Tilly: Captain Booth, you mean?

Sally (laughing): Yes, my dear—Captain Booth, as they call him. I say, there’s that new street-singer coming. They say she’s Irish. Listen—she’s singing the Wanderer’s song now. Some of the things she sings are queer.

Tilly: I’ve heard her. I wonder why she comes here. She has got a penny anyhow, so I suppose someone likes her voice. And I must say it is not a bad one.

Sally: She won’t get anything from Captain Booth. They say he’s so stingy.

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2

Tilly: Nor from us.

Sally: Let’s be off before she comes here. It’s striking three. Put up those patterns in your bag and I’ll go with you to the shop. Be quick! There, you’ve dropped everything! What a girl you are!

(ENTER the STREET SINGER. She walks very slowly on to the stage. As the GIRLS pick up the dropped articles she sings her first verse.)

Street Singer: (see Music on Page 12)

I wander alone and the stones of the street
And the dust of the highways are worn by my feet.
I wander alone through the cities of earth
But my heart it beats true to the land of my birth.

Sally: You won’t get any pennies here, singer. You’d better try Mayfair. Come, Tilly.

(The singer makes no answer. She only watches the two girls off the stage, L., with dull indifference and then begins her slow walk and her song.)

Street Singer: (see Music on Page 12)

My footsteps shall turn to my home loved of old
Though the walls are torn down and the land to be sold.
I will take my last sleep with my head on its stones
And the soil of my fathers shall cover my bones.
I wander alone——

(A man’s hand is seen to throw out a penny from the little window of the house. The STREET SINGER picks it up with a “Thank you, sir,” and continues her song as she goes out.)

Street Singer: contd. (see Music, Page 12)

I wander alone but, oh, once by my side . . . .

(Her voice died away after she has gone out, L. ENTER, R., KESIAH GRANT and LYDIA SMITH. They both carry handkerchief bundles. The one carried by Kesiah is a full one, Lydia’s is almost empty.)

Kesiah: My word, Lydia! Look west.

Lydia: The sun’s getting low. It’s that bright that I can hardly see up the river. I shouldn’t wonder but there’ll be a frost to-night, if that’s what you mean.

Kesiah: Yes, I did mean a frost. But anyhow it’s warm enough here in the sun. Just stop a moment, Lydia. You could sit on this seat while I look for a parcel. I promised the chemist round the corner that I would bring a bottle of medicine to one of Mrs. Booth’s lodgers here. Of course, it has got to the bottom of my bag. Things are always so contrairy. You had better sit down or I’ll never be able to find it. It makes me that restless to see you keep standing.

(LYDIA sits down stiffly. KESIAH takes her parcels out one by one.)

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3

Lydia: Well, I don’t mind waiting so long as you don’t stop, as you always do, talking to Nan Booth for hours and hours.

Kesiah (huffily): You needn’t be afraid and even if I do want to talk you are at liberty to go, Lydia. I shan’t be offended. Ah! here’s the little bottle.

Lydia: I suppose it’s for that old man lodger of Nan’s—the one they call Captain Booth! (This is said with a sniff.)

Kesiah: It was only the boys called him that and the name stuck. But where’s the harm in his being called Captain Booth? I see none.

Lydia: I see plenty.

Kesiah: And ain’t your name Lydia Smith? And if you was to let lodgings I bet you’d ‘ave many a Mr. Smith or Captain Smith come that you’d take in—Tom, Dick and ‘Arry, and you’re a widder too. Nan don’t think nothing about it. She’s kind to everyone, she is. I shouldn’t like to take care of such a queer old salt myself.

Lydia: He’s no captain, but he does look as if he had something to do with the sea. He draws too, and sailors often draw. I have got a picture of a ship my uncle drew and he was a sailor. Mr. Booth gave the fishmonger a picture of the sea.

Kesiah: Lor bless you! I’ve seen it. I could have done a better one myself. It looks as if he had squeezed a lot of paints, blue, red, yaller and white onto a board and then sat on it while they were wet. The fishmonger likes it so that’s all right. Now I’ll knock up Nancy.

(She goes towards the door but before she can knock Mrs. BOOTH enters from it carrying a cushion and a rug.)

Kesiah: Ah! here you are, Nan. I was just a’going to knock you up to bring you this bottle of medicine for your lodger Mr. Booth.

Nan: Thank you, Kesiah. I’ll give it to him.

Lydia: Whatever are you doing with all those things, Mrs. Booth?

Nan: My lodger, though he’s a sick man, is all for sitting out.

Kesiah: He oughtn’t. It’s December.

Nan: It is warm in the sun.

Lydia: There’ll be a frost to-night.

Nan: I shouldn’t wonder, but I’ll bring him in before that. He’ll be warmly wrapped up.

Lydia: How do you like people calling him Booth when that ain’t his real name.

Nan: Well, the name he gave me when he first came was that outlandish that I couldn’t say it nor anybody else couldn’t but it began with a B. I don’t believe that outlandish name is his either. He’s English right enough though he is queer and queerest of all when he takes to droring. I must be quick and bring him out. Give me the bottle, Kesiah. Good day to you.

(Exit NAN C.)

4

Kesiah (disappointed): Nancy is short of her tongue to-day.

Lydia: All the better. Come along!

(Exit LYDIA R. followed by KESIAH who, however, does not go until she has seen Nan re-enter supporting, or rather trying to support, TURNER who resists help. He walks heavily and unsteadily to the seat. Mrs. BOOTH has carried out yet another rug, the first having formed a softer back to the bench. The second must be tucked well round him although he has an enormous coat. TURNER in an irritated way does most of the tucking for himself.)

Nan: There! What a will of your own you’ve got! You feel all right, eh?

Turner: Yes.

Nan: Ah! You’ll feel content as long as the sun shines on you, but it won’t shine for long.

Turner: Of course it won’t shine for long.

Nan (watching his eager gaze towards the R.): You always were one for looking at things. Your eyes are fair glued on the river there.

Turner: It’s fine, Nan—a river of light. Look at those boats on the shore. The masts and rigging cut into the sun on the water and their shadows are blue on that red-gold mud.

Nan: I’d rather see a bright fire behind the bars of my grate any day. Well I must go and clear up and get a basket for my shopping.

(Exit NAN C. TURNER gives a grunt of satisfaction and settles himself down more comfortably and continues his gaze. His hand wanders to his pocket and after some fumbling he gets out a pencil and a notebook and begins to jot down something in it. Enter Mr. MAYALL, R. He seems about to pass through to L. when he pauses to look again at the swathed up figure on the bench. He stops.)

Mr. M.: Sir—Mr. Turner—Surely I cannot be mistaken. It is you, Mr. Turner. I was on my way to call at your studio and am fortunate in finding you here. You are studying the sunset light. Please forgive me for disturbing you.

(TURNER has made a movement of irritation on hearing his name pronounced and has turned away his head from his visitor. He speaks coldly.)

Turner: The light will fade very quickly this afternoon so I have but little time to spare from my work, Mr. Mayall. As it is not always to the interest of an artist to be known, may I ask you not to address me by name?

Mr. M.: Certainly, sir. I will not do so again.

(He begins to open his coat to get to an inner pocket.)

Turner: You have need perhaps of more money?

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5

Mr. M.: No, indeed, sir.

Turner: What then can you want of me if your experiments in what is called photography are successful?

Mr. M.: I was seeking you for a very different reason than to borrow money of you. I am sorry to interrupt your study but I should be grateful if you could spare me a few moments.

Turner: To the point.

Mr. M.: May I ask you to receive this packet in a public roadway? I venture to ask you as it is a very quiet street with no one about. I would like to repay you the amount I owe you. In the name of all workers in science I thank you for your generous and most timely help. Your loan has done its work.

(Mr. MAYALL hands TURNER a pocket book. TURNER looks round suspiciously and examines its contents and then buries it in some inner pocket.)

Turner: It is for me to thank you, Mr. Mayall. So my loan of three hundred pounds has been of use in order to finish this invention.

Mr. M.: Hardly to finish it; to develop it on practical lines yes, Sir. I brought a few prints with me on the chance that they may interest you. May I show them to you?

Turner: I will see the prints. But I am keeping you standing, Mr. Mayall. Sit down.

Mr. M.: Thank you, Sir (He opens a small case). You, our great artist, can paint pictures that seem to us magic. I can make the sun draw pictures. Is not that like magic?

Turner: It is wonderful! Most wonderful! I thought my great rival was Claude the painter of the sun. I find that it is the sun itself.

Mr. M.: What will be the influence on art of this invention?

Turner: Much and then none. Taste is already changing, Mr. Mayall, and will change soon more rapidly still. I am old. I feel the change but I cannot alter it nor can I look into the future. Thank you for letting me see these prints, but it grows cold. I must soon go in. Good evening, Mr. Mayall.

Mr. M.: Good evening, Sir. I hope you will excuse my want of ceremony. I wished to thank you personally.

(Exit Mr. MAYALL, L. TURNER takes up his pencil and notebook again.)

Turner (murmuring): The gold will soon give place to crimson. That’s more difficult. Paints are weaker there. Ugh! It’s turning very cold. I must move a bit or I shan’t be able to get up.

(He shifts in his seat, grunts, drops his rug and struggles to pick it up. Enter KESIAH and LYDIA R.)

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6

Lydia: Well all I can say to you, Kesiah, is that you just spoil your ‘usband. He has only to say ‘alf a word of some silly want and you must needs toil off to get it and only—What are you up to now?

(KESIAH has gone to TURNER.)

Kesiah (cheerfully): You want to get up, eh! I’ll give you a helping hand.

Turner (snapping): No you won’t. Mind your own business. There are too many officious people about.

Kesiah (mortified): I have never ‘ad such a uncivil nanswer to a civil hoffer!—not in all my born days.

Lydia: Well you shouldn’t poke your nose in where you’re not wanted.

(Exeunt the two Women L. KESIAH holding her head very high. Enter Mrs. BOOTH with a scarf and a basket after locking her door. She puts the scarf round the neck of Turner who does not seem to feel the attention.)

Nan: You are not going stiff, are you?

Turner: No.

Nan: Pull your rug higher up. There.

Turner: I have been thinking of a day when I was stiff—really stiff after bitter cold.

Nan: The day you came to this house first, I know.

Turner: Yes.

Nan: I’ll never forget it. It was after the great storm that was. We had thunder and lightning with the snow. It was Captain Bailey who brought you in. He has lived in Chelsea from a boy. He was downright anxious about you and wanted to keep his eye on you. He’s a kind man and I have heard say he is a good skipper.

Turner: Yes.

Nan: He told me that you were a fair marvel and had pluck enough for ten sailors.

Turner: That was not so very long ago, Nan, and yet I was strong then. What a storm it was! I did not think Captain Bailey’s smack would win through it.

Nan (sitting down): I gave that young captain a bit of my mind for tying you up to the mast like that even though you’d ordered it. But you have such a will of your own. And with the waves breaking over you and in winter too!

Turner: It was fine, Nan, fine!

Nan (scornfully): Fine! Why when I heard of it I thought you mad. But I didn’t know you then. You are always one for seeing things and that determined too. Why though it is December you would come out sick as you are.

7

Turner: That storm! Gods! What a sight it was! Wind tossing the spray to the clouds to mix with the snow whirling down. They called my true record of it “Soap suds and whitewash.” Not bad! Not bad after all. He! He! I am not sure the real snow and foam did not look like soap suds and whitewash, but one minute of those soap suds would have finished off the newspaper critics. I had four hours of it.

Nan: Lor!

Turner: I was stiff as a log and as cold as a lump of ice. I was half drowned by the waves breaking over me. Jove and Neptune were fighting together and Boreas joined in the fray.

Nan: How you talk. I don’t understand half of it. But when you say “stiff” I know that well enough. Even though you had come from the other end of London you were still lame when Captain Bailey brought you in.

Turner: I was sick and lame, Nan, but it was worth it.

Nan: You were glad to be put to bed I can tell you. Do you mind how I brought you up something to warm you?

Turner: Yes. It was a pot of strong hot rum. I tell you I have drunk wine with princes but I never had a drink like that.

Nan: So you have drunk wine with princes have you? Well I always thought you had come down in the world. What did it, eh? Why are you here now? I guess you have not much more than a few pence in your pocket. You and your princes indeed! I like that tale. Why do you come to old Nan to be nursed up?

Turner: Why do I come here? I must think that out. There is a bird, Nan, with spreading feathers of gold and blue and scarlet. They say that bird lives for long years and travels far, flashing like a jewel in the sun and never touching earth. But when the time comes for it to die it returns to where it first saw the light no matter how chill a glade it was in which it was reared.

Nan: La! Mr. Booth, how you do run on! What has the story of a fine bird to do with you? You never flaunted it. Never tell me.

Turner: When I was a boy I lived in a dark city lane. I was taught by my barber father to treasure up every halfpenny given to me and to avoid spending one. My friends were poor people and I learnt their ways. I passed on and made friends with the rich. I bathed my eyes in colour and beauty was my goddess. But my time will soon be up, Nan. This is my glade and your old house my dark alley. It will see my end.

Nan: Nonsense! You are not as bad as all that! You’ll soon be about as strong as ever and you’ll leave me again, I suppose, for your own fine friends. But don’t let your mind go wandering any more. But that’s what comes of being an old bachelor. Now tell me have you ever been in love?

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8

Turner: Hum—Long ago I thought I was in love but it passed away when she would not have me. It was all for the best for if she had said yes she might have come between me and my old dad. I have never loved a woman as I loved him. He lived with me, Nan.

Nan: What about your mother?

Turner: She died when I was a small boy. Dad brought me up. I can see him now with his thin grey beard and long hair. He wears always in my thoughts his grey coat that looked too big for him. I often dream he comes to me as he used to come to my studio before he went for his walk. He would sit down on a stool near me, look at what I was doing, put his hand on my shoulder and say: “It’s going to be beautiful, William.”

Nan: Ah “William.” Go on Mr. Booth. Who looked after you two I should like to know?

Turner (tersely): Mrs. Danby.

Nan: And what was she like?

Turner (with a twinkle imitating a stiffness of manner): She was very clean.

Nan (with a hearty laugh): I think I know her sort. What else?

Turner: She never laughed and she was always right, which you are not, Nan. It will be dark for your shopping. You must go now. It’s getting cold.

Nan: Won’t you go in?

Turner: No. Be quick back. You are late.

Nan: Lawks sake! So I am! (She stoops to pick up her basket.)

(Enter TILLY and SALLY, L.)

Tilly: Just look at Captain Booth. Ain’t he wrapt up!

Sally: If he’s an old skipper, he ought not to be afraid of air.

Tilly (in a mocking tone): Good evening, Captain and Mrs. Booth. It is almost too hot to sit out, isn’t it?

(Mrs. BOOTH looks up fiercely from her basket but waits to see what TURNER will say. He has slowly turned his head and looks fully at TILLY. TILLY wilts, and with a slight curtsey speaks in a changed tone.)

Good evening, sir.

(Exeunt the two girls R., demurely.)

Nan: Minxes like that are not wanted here, but you soon sent them off.

(TURNER makes no answer.) How I wish you’d tell me your real name.

Turner: Not yet, Nan.

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9

Nan: Well, well! You’re that determined! Now I’ll bring you back some shrimps for your tea. You’ll want three-penny-worth. If I say they are for Mr. Booth I shouldn’t be surprised if the fishmonger don’t put in a few prawns. He doesn’t forget that painting you gave him—of the sea, wasn’t it? My! The sun has gone down behind the cloud. I’ll be back in a jiffy.

(TURNER has taken out his purse very slowly and has put three pennies in her hand. Exit NAN, L. TURNER again looks up the river but the crimson light has faded and has changed to blue. TURNER shivers and puts his hand on his heart. He begins to pull up the rug but leaves it and becomes still. After a moment he looks up and turns to R., as if he saw someone coming in and his expression becomes softened. He takes his hand from under the rug, makes a slight movement and rests them on his knees, as if holding palette and brushes. He looks straight before him. Then turning slowly, as if someone was sitting beside him):

Turner: Will the picture be a good one? . . . No, Dad? It is not beautiful yet. The colour is not warm enough . . . I can’t get the glow . . . You think it will come . . . I will work at it, Dad; but it is so cold. My hands seem stiff . . . Must you go? . . . Come to me again soon. I want you, Dad . . . I always want you.

(TURNER’S murmur ceases. He sinks down lower. Enter NAN, L.)

Nan: There now, I have come back straight from the fishmongers. I wouldn’t stop because he said the frost had come on so hard and sudden that it was enough to kill any one. He had never known such a drop. I’ll just put my basket near the door and unlock it and then I’ll help you in. (She does this in a hurry.) There now! You have grown stiff after all and tired.

Turner (dreamily): Tired!

Nan: Up you get. Lean on me. That’s right. What’s the matter now? It’s no use looking for the sun behind that mist. It’s almost gone down.

Turner: Almost gone down.

Nan: It’s dark inside but it’ll soon be light. Come!

Turner: Will it soon be light?

Nan (guiding him along): Yes. I’ll light the candles. That’s better. I’ll get you to bed. You want sleep.

Turner: Yes, I want sleep.

(Exit TURNER, C, helped by Mrs. BOOTH. A light appears in the upper window. The street singer’s voice is heard L. She wanders slowly back and shivers as she sings her monotonous song. After she has sung a little Mrs. DANBY enters L. She looks well at the house as if uncertain of its being the right one before she interrupts the song. The singing of the song continues for as long or as short a time as it seems convenient.)

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10

SONG (See Music on page 13)

“Shall I fear when the night clouds fall
And gone is the sun’s last ray?
I’ll rest in peace till I hear my call.
New work will come with the day.
I am weary of Life’s rough bed,
But the dawn will scatter the night.
“Put out the candle,” the old man said,
“For the Lord will give me light.”
When he comes to the Golden Gate,
Will the angel say him nay?
No, come he early or come he late,
He will not be turned away.
The seraphs on high have heard.
They spread out their golden wings.
Rank beyond rank are the angels stirred
By the joy that his coming brings.

Mrs. Danby: Can you tell me where a Mrs. Booth lives?

Street Singer: I know no one here. I have not sung in these parts before.

(Enter Mrs. BOOTH from the house crying.)

Nan: He has gone! Oh, I know he has gone! He had no breath when I got him up the stairs. The last thing he said was “For the singer” and he gave me a penny. Now, my dear, run for the doctor. Quick! Quick! Round the corner—by the red house.

(Exit STREET SINGER, R.)

Mrs. Danby: Can you tell me where a Mrs. Booth lives?

Nan: I am Mrs. Booth but I can’t attend to you now. Mr. Booth is dying! Did I say dying? I know he is dead! (She weeps into her apron.)

Mrs. Danby: Dead! You must be making a mistake.

Nan (indignant): Who should know better than I? I am making no mistake, never fear. I must go in.

Mrs. Danby: Stop! Speak to you I must. You say he is dying?

Nan: What’s that to you, pray? I can’t stop. I must go to him.

Mrs. Danby: It is I who must go to him at once! Take me in!

Nan: Let go of me! Who are you, I should like to know?

Mrs. Danby: I am Mrs. Danby, housekeeper to Mr. Turner.

Nan: Mrs. Danby!

Mrs. Danby: Yes. Mrs. Danby. I have just heard that he has hidden himself away in Chelsea and calls himself Captain Booth.

Nan: That he don’t. Who did you say he was?

Mrs. Danby: Mr. Turner, a great artist.

Nan: An artist.

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11

Mrs. Danby: Yes.

Nan: And you are Mrs. Danby?

Mrs. Danby: Yes I am. Get that well into your head and take me in.

Nan: And his name is Turner.

Mrs. Danby: Mr. William Turner—a great landscape painter. Have you got that right?

Nan: So that was why he was for ever looking at the light on the river. He let the boys call him Captain Booth just for a joke. He was always one for a joke. He lies on the old truckle bed in the attic upstairs. He could see the sky and the river from that little room. He can’t now! He can’t now! Come!

(NAN goes into the house followed by Mrs. DANBY. The DOCTOR enters hurriedly R, with the STREET SINGER who points out the house to him. He goes in. She remains and continues her song.)

The sky is sprinkled with stars. (See Music on page 13)
Can a star his soul enshrine?
E’en there he will break the bars,
No star can his soul confine.
No heaven his soul confine.
He will visit the earth again.
We shall see him in storm and shine.
We shall see him in wind and rain.

(The light is quenched in the window above and the curtain is drawn. The SINGER’S voice has faded away as she moves off R, after crossing herself. The clock strikes four.)

CURTAIN.

Songs composed by Cecily Muggeridge.

12

13

Assessing the quality and significance of the play and music

The Drama

This short one act play on close reading is a remarkably interesting piece. Mary Greene has not simply written a sentimental Victorian tableau. She has woven together several authentic historical strands: Turner’s last months at Chelsea, the riverside community around Lindsey and Cheyne Walk, Captain Bailey’s recollections, and William Mayall’s early photographic experiments. It is considerably more historically informed than one might expect from what was intended as a half-hour amateur play.

As the scenes unfold, the historical texture of this play continues to be impressive. The exchange between Turner and Mayall is especially noteworthy. Greene has Turner articulate an almost prophetic response to photography—“I thought my great rival was Claude… I find that it is the sun itself”—which is dramatically effective while remaining remarkably plausible. Equally interesting is her inclusion of the £300 loan to Mayall, a detail drawn from Turner’s documented generosity towards scientific innovators. It suggests she had consulted biographical sources rather than relying on legend.

The ending is, I think like the other parts, again considerably better than one might expect from a small amateur dramatic publication. Greene manages to avoid excessive sentimentality until the closing scene, and even then she bases the emotion on recorded facts: Turner hiding himself as “Captain Booth”, Mrs. Danby’s arrival too late, and the contrast between the humble Chelsea lodging-house and the fame of the artist. It is rather moving.

The Music

Cecily Muggeridge understood exactly what Greene was trying to achieve dramatically. This is not drawing-room ballad music, nor is it a hymn. It occupies a rather interesting space somewhere between folk song, parlour song and incidental theatre music, which is precisely what a small dramatic production needed.

A few observations stand out.

“I Wander Alone”

The direction at the head is:

“Wearily, with monotonous rhythm.”

That one instruction tells us almost everything.

Muggeridge has deliberately avoided anything memorable or sentimental. The melody moves largely by stepwise motion, with very few leaps. There is no grand climax and no obvious “tune” that would encourage applause. Instead the music trudges along exactly as the stage directions describe the singer:

“She walks very slowly…”

The accompaniment (if there was one) would almost disappear beneath the words.

It is reminiscent of nineteenth-century street ballads and Irish airs without directly quoting either. The effect is one of endless wandering.

The final phrase—

“But, oh, once by my side…”

is left unresolved as the singer disappears. Dramatically that is very effective. The audience is left with a musical question hanging in the air.

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“Street-Singer”

The second song is rather more ambitious.

The opening instruction,

“Wearily in time with dragging feet”

again ties the music directly to movement on stage.

But notice that after the words

“The Seraphs on high have heard…”

Muggeridge actually marks

“Quicker”

The music becomes noticeably more animated.

That corresponds exactly with the text moving from earthly weariness into heavenly expectation.

This is a clever piece of word painting.

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Dramatic function

The songs are much more than interludes.

They perform three dramatic functions.

First, they establish mood.

Before Turner even appears we hear someone who has no settled home.

That immediately prepares the audience for Turner himself, who is spiritually homeless.

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Secondly, they become a chorus.

Rather like a Greek tragedy, the singer comments on the action without participating in it.

Notice how the songs anticipate what Turner himself later says.

“I wander alone…”

becomes

“This is my glade…”

and finally

“I want you, Dad…”

The emotional trajectory has already been prepared musically.

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Thirdly, the final song almost becomes Turner’s requiem.

The line

“Put out the candle… For the Lord will give me light.”

is extraordinarily apt.

Turner’s life has been spent searching for light.

The last image is no longer artistic light but spiritual light.

That is an elegant dramatic conception.

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It is clear that Cecily Muggeridge was an experienced accompanist. These songs are written by someone who understands:

• amateur singers,
• small halls,
• limited rehearsal time,
• the importance of text.

Nothing is over-complicated.

The vocal ranges are comfortable.

The rhythms are straightforward.

Everything is designed so that the audience hears the words.

That is exactly what good incidental theatre music should do.

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The Greene–Muggeridge collaboration deserves to be viewed as a genuine partnership.

Greene writes in visual imagery.

Muggeridge writes in movement.

Greene’s recurring image is light.

Muggeridge’s recurring image is walking.

The two reinforce one another beautifully.

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The Street Singer is actually the structural spine of the play.

She appears:

• before Turner,
• during the action,
• at his death,
• after his death.

She opens the drama and she closes it.

Her songs frame the entire work.

Without them the play would feel like a sequence of scenes.

With them it becomes something much closer to a one-act lyrical meditation.

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Some Conclusions

Mary Greene herself deserves more attention than she has received. Her relationship to Graham Greene will inevitably attract notice, but after reading Turner at Chelsea I think that would actually be the least interesting thing about her. What impressed me most was her research.

She appears to have drawn upon several strands of Turner’s biography that were available by about 1920:

• Turner’s concealment in Chelsea under the name “Captain Booth”.
• His friendship with William Mayall and support for photographic experimentation.
• The famous snowstorm episode aboard Captain Bailey’s smack.
• His extraordinary attachment to his father.
• The arrival of Mrs. Danby shortly before or immediately after his death.

These are not random anecdotes. They have been selected to create a coherent portrait of the ageing Turner. That suggests someone who had read the contemporary biographies quite carefully rather than simply inventing a picturesque story.

The collaboration with Cecily Muggeridge is equally interesting. Incidental music was a common feature of parish and amateur dramatic societies, but the songs here are not merely decorative. They perform almost a Greek chorus, foreshadowing death and giving the play a spiritual framework. Once you place the musical notation alongside the transcription, modern readers can appreciate the work as Greene intended.

Greene was writing around 1920, when Turner was still presented publicly as a rather eccentric bachelor genius. The more intimate aspects of his relationship with Sophia Booth were not something that could comfortably be dramatised for the audiences this play was intended for—church halls, literary societies and women’s institutes.

The nude studies of Sophia Booth complicate that picture considerably. I think they tell us something rather different from the Victorian accusations made by Turner’s first biographer Walter Thornbury, the critic John Ruskin and others. They show Turner continuing to observe the human body with the same intense visual curiosity that he brought to skies and seas.

Victorian moralists tended to conflate nudity with impropriety, whereas later generations of artists would have regarded figure studies as entirely legitimate. Of course, because Sophia was also his companion, those drawings acquired a sensational dimension after his death. Modern scholarship generally treats them more cautiously—as evidence of an intimate domestic relationship rather than evidence of “perversion” and “insanity.” Ruskin’s judgement probably reveals at least as much about late Victorian anxieties as it does about Turner himself.

One thing that is particularly striking in Greene’s play is that she completely avoids sentimentality over Sophia Booth by almost removing her from the narrative. Nancy Booth is clearly based upon her, but she is transformed into a maternal, practical, endlessly kind landlady whose significance lies in the humanity she offers Turner rather than in romance. Whether that was deliberate reticence or simply the conventions of 1920, it gives the play a gentle emotional restraint.

It does seem a pity that BBC Radio most likely missed a trick by producing only one of Mary Greene’s great artist series half hour plays in 1940. The entire series would have certainly informed and entertained British war-time listeners if they were equal to the quality of Turner At Chelsea.

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Some further media resources and links on Turner and Chelsea

Turner The Secret Sketchbooks. 2025

BBC documentary https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002mgn1/turner-the-secret-sketchbooks

“A look at the hidden psychology of renowned painter JMW Turner through his 37,000 private sketches, drawings and watercolours – an extraordinary archive that reveals the man behind the masterpieces. 
For the first time on television, these pages – including previously unseen erotic sketches – are used as a window into Turner’s inner world, exposing his private thoughts, creative obsessions and emotional life. 
Guiding viewers through his life story are actor Timothy Spall, who portrayed the artist in Mike Leigh’s film Mr Turner, as well as Tracey Emin, Ronnie Wood, Sir John Akomfrah, Orna Guralnik, Chris Packham and an array of leading art historians.”

Fake or Fortune 2012 Turner: A Miscarriage of Justice?

See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01n39kg/fake-or-fortune-series-2-2-turner-a-miscarriage-of-justice

“In the early years of the 20th century, spinster sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies spent much of their vast fortune buying the cream of European art as a gift to the people of Wales. When Gwendoline died in 1951, all the paintings in her collection were bequeathed to the National Museum of Wales. Amongst the works most proudly displayed were many by JMW Turner, perhaps the nation’s best loved artist. These paintings were the pinnacle of the sisters’ collection, carefully selected and greatly valued. 
Yet within months of this extraordinary act of generosity, the authenticity of the paintings was thrown into doubt by art world experts who branded them fakes. These prized exhibits were deemed ‘unfit to hang on the gallery’s walls’. For more than half a century a cloud has hung over three of the landscapes, said by experts to be a hand other than Turner’s. But Philip believes this may be a miscarriage of justice. As Philip and Fiona investigate, they enter a murky world as they discover the paintings are connected to Turner’s secret lover. In the end it will be down to the latest forensic testing in order to prove if the paintings were by Joseph Mallord William Turner. But will the process restore the Davies sisters’ reputations as art connoisseurs and allow the pictures to see the light of day once again?”

Tate Gallery at Tate Britain. See: https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain/display/jmw-turner

Turner’s House 119 Cheyne Walk – Kultura Press
 See: https://kulturapress.com/2023/05/15/turners-house-119-cheyne-walk/

The Turner Contemporary gallery built precisely on the site of Sophia Booth’s original Margate home. See: https://turnercontemporary.org/our-story

How the Chelsea period was depicted in Timothy Spall’s acclaimed film, Mr. Turner. In Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner (2014), the Chelsea period is depicted as a quiet, domestic refuge. Timothy Spall’s J.M.W. Turner lives a secret, second life in a modest riverside cottage on Cheyne Walk with Sophia Caroline Booth (played by Marion Bailey), a cheerful Margate landlady.

See: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/oct/31/turner-mike-leigh-film-timothy-spall

And: https://rhapsodyinwords.com/2015/03/09/film-review-mr-turner/

[This posting has been researched, written and produced by Professor Tim Crook.]

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Special thanks to Karen White and Chris Pain whose families lived in Chelsea during World War Two, and Malachy John McCauley, also brought up in Chelsea, who have very kindly encouraged and assisted my research. Special thanks to Marja Giejgo for editorial assistance. Research and archive facilities from Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council library services, The Imperial War Museum and National Archives at Kew.

If you would like to protect the history and heritage of Chelsea do consider applying to be a member of The Chelsea Society which ‘was founded in 1927 to protect the interests of all who live and work here, and to preserve and enhance the unique character of Chelsea for the public benefit.‘

I am also a great believer in the importance of local libraries for preserving the memory of community and local history. Royal Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council library services were my refuge and temples of learning when I was brought up in Chelsea. They continue to provide outstanding lending and archive services, have been invaluable in my continuing research and writing about the people of Chelsea. I give tribute to all who work in them, use them and support them.

Congratulations to The Chelsea Citizen, a dynamic new hyper-local newspaper launching in the spring 2025. Founder & Editor Rob McGibbon, Chelsea resident for 30 years and 40 years a respected and campaigning journalist. This is a significant and important development in the history of newspapers and journalism in Chelsea. Whole-hearted support from Chelsea History and Studies. Sign up for the Chelsea Citizen Newsletter.