Philip Napier Miles

Philip Napier Miles JP DLitt h.c. (Bristol) (21 January 1865 – 19 July 1935) was a prominent and wealthy citizen of Bristol, UK, who left his mark on the city, especially on what are now its western suburbs, through his musical and organisational abilities and through good works of various kinds. He was the only son of Philip William Skynner Miles (1816–1881), a major promoter and developer of the docks at Avonmouth, who was the eldest son of Philip John Miles (1773–1845) by his second marriage to Clarissa Peach (1790–1868), and Pamela Adelaide Napier, daughter of the soldier (distinguished in the Peninsular War) and military historian General Sir William Francis Patrick Napier. He was therefore half-nephew of Sir William Miles, 1st Baronet, half-cousin of Sir Philip John William Miles, 2nd Baronet, both Conservative politicians, and cousin of the fashionable portrait painter Frank Miles, gentleman cricketer Robert Miles and Mount Everest explorer, General The Hon Charles Granville Bruce. He was educated at Harrow School and Oriel College, Oxford, and was selected as High Sheriff of Gloucestershire for 1916–17. Life in music Philip Napier Miles was the last squire of Kingsweston and was prominent in an amateur capacity in the musical life of the city in the early part of the 20th century, having studied in post-Wagnerian Dresden and under Hubert Parry. He was a minor composer gaining modest recognition for his small output. He wrote six operas, three of which remain unperformed and four unpublished. His other works are a sonata for violin and piano, a Fantasia on two Elizabethan themes (by Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Morley), and two early works: a first and only symphony (in C) and the "Lyric overture: From the West Country". His other vocal works consist of songs with piano accompaniment, mostly published, and the school song for the then Portway Senior Boys' School in nearby Shirehampton. Although Kingsweston was known as a welcoming place for musicians and a centre for music, Miles did not court fame as a composer. His works occasionally had performances in his lifetime in London and at the Hereford for the Three Choirs Festival, and at least one broadcast (of the "Lyric overture"). No recordings of his music are known. Miles was a friend and supporter of Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose violin rhapsody "The Lark Ascending" was first performed by Marie Hall (with piano accompaniment) in 1920 at Shirehampton Public Hall at his instigation.