The retired Bishop of St Alban’s, The Right Reverend Dr Christopher Herbert, will officiate and the choir will sing an anthem composed for the occasion by St Bart’s director of music Clive Osgood at the service on Sunday, May 19.
The service starts at 6pm.
A social reformer, Mr Aitken was a great force for the good from 1897 to 1917 and Haslemere has much to thank him for. The news of his sudden death, aged 52, threw the town “into a state of perfect gloom”.
Within a few years of Aitken’s arrival, Chestnut Avenue School was built and he commissioned architect Charles Spooner to design Arts and Crafts St Christopher’s Church, which was opened free of debt, thanks to his powers of persuasion.
A keen supporter of the Workers’ Educational Association, he founded the Haslemere branch and also took the lead in forming a garden suburb in town, comprising a development of small affordable houses around the Haslemere Hall area.
An active member of both the parish council and the urban district council, he helped to found the Haslemere Society, was a prominent supporter of Haslemere Educational Museum, and also started the relief committee, which distributed parish funds to the deserving poor.
Described as having “the eternal freshness of a child”, Mr Aitken also founded the town’s annual pantomime, both writing and acting in those performed in his lifetime.
His grave at St Bart’s has suffered years of neglect but thanks to Philip Hunt and his group, it is currently being restored to mark the centenary.
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