Why did St Peter’s Château-d’Œx need an organ in 1916?

In a letter to The Times of 17 August 1916, the British Chaplain E. Dudley Lampen wrote that the interned soldiers, “especially when a hymn is chosen that they like, sing with all their hearts”, but that “our American harmonium, excellently played by one of our soldiers who was a professional organist in England, is not sufficiently powerful to lead the musical portions of the service.”

Soldiers at Château d'Oex

Q: How much money did the organ appeal ask for?

Lampen wrote: “We have £40 in hand, but need a further sum of £300 in order to procure a small, but efficient, instrument.” Cheques crossed “Château d’Oex Church Organ Fund, Cuénod’s Bank, Montreux” were to be sent to Colonel Vansittart, Chalet Benvenuta, Château d’Oex, who had consented to act as treasurer of the fund.

Q: What was the organ intended to commemorate?

Lampen wrote that the organ “would be a permanent memorial of the historic sojourn of our British officers and men in this valley of Switzerland”, and that many relatives and friends of the interned prisoners “would esteem it a privilege to contribute towards placing such a memorial in the English Church of Château d’Oex.” Note that the two troop figures in this letter are not recoverable from the surviving scan; only “another 200 men this month” is legible with certainty.

The Times, 17 August 1916. One of St Peter’s First World War documents, from the years when British prisoners of war were interned at Château-d’Œx, 1916–17. Transcribed in full from a cutting made available by The Times Archive.

In this report: the chaplain’s appeal to readers for £300, on top of the £40 already in hand, to buy an organ for the church at Château-d’Œx as a memorial to the interned men.

← All archive documents

Headline as printed: SOLDIERS AT CHÂTEAU D’OEX.

Handwritten annotation

The Times 17 August 1916

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—The mountain village of Château d’Oex in Switzerland is now crowded with British soldiers interned for the remainder of the war and until peace is signed. We have at present in Château d’Oex some [?]00 soldiers, and we are expecting a contingent of another 200 men this month. We shall thus have [?]00 in this little town and neighbourhood. The dangers through which each man has passed in the firing line, the ill-treatment that all without exception have met with in German camps, have served to impress their minds with a sense of thankfulness to God for their deliverance, and to quicken their religious instincts. This is shown in an appreciation of the Church services. The soldiers, especially when a hymn is chosen that they like, sing with all their hearts. They enter into the beautiful liturgy of our Church with a heartiness which is refreshing to hear. We need, however, an organ to give greater support to the singing. Our American harmonium, excellently played by one of our soldiers who was a professional organist in England, is not sufficiently powerful to lead the musical portions of the service. We have £40 in hand, but need a further sum of £300 in order to procure a small, but efficient, instrument. This organ would be a permanent memorial of the historic sojourn of our British officers and men in this valley of Switzerland. I feel sure that there are many relatives and friends of the British, interned prisoners of war who would esteem it a privilege to contribute towards placing such a memorial in the English Church of Château d’Oex. Cheques, crossed “Château d’Oex Church Organ Fund, Cuénod’s Bank, Montreux,” may be sent to Colonel Vansittart, Chalet Benvenuta, Château d’Oex, Switzerland, who has kindly consented to act as treasurer of the fund.

End of the transcribed document

Notes by St Peter's — not part of the document above

St Peter’s and the 1916 internment

The Château-d’Œx chaplaincy was placed on the Colonial and Continental Church Society’s list in 1866, and for the thirty-three years before St Peter’s was built the English congregation had no building of its own. Served by seasonal chaplains, it met in the village’s Protestant church — the Temple, up on the hill — and, when the climb or the snow made that impractical, in the lounge of the Hôtel Berthod, the Pension Morier and the Salle des Catéchumènes. The season was a summer one — June to September, before winter sports drew visitors to the valley. The church was built in 1899, on land given by the Berthod brothers and with a loan from the Society; it was consecrated on 27 May 1902 by Thomas Edward Wilkinson, Anglican Bishop of North Europe, and enlarged in 1911, by which time the chaplain could no longer seat everyone who came.

From 1916 neutral Switzerland took in wounded and invalid prisoners of war from both sides — French, Belgian, German and British — released from enemy camps under agreements between their governments. Château-d’Œx received the British. The first train reached Montreux on 30 May 1916 carrying 304 men, including 32 officers. The chaplain, the Revd E. Dudley Lampen — the parish’s first permanent chaplain, in post since 1908, and assisted during the war by the Revd Isaac Hutchinson — later described the whole episode as “the sojourn of 750 British soldiers in this valley”.

St Peter’s was their parish church. They filled it for services, and one of the internees, a professional organist in England before the war, played the church’s American harmonium. In August 1916 Lampen wrote to The Times asking readers to fund a proper organ — “a permanent memorial of the historic sojourn of our British officers and men in this valley”. The fund’s treasurer was Colonel E. Vansittart of the Royal West Kent Regiment, himself one of the officers who had arrived on that first train. The organ was dedicated on 8 March 1917: a Goll of 1916, opus 462, and the organ still played in the church today.

These First World War reports were traced for the centenary of the internment, which Château-d’Œx marked on Sunday 29 and Monday 30 May 2016 — a hundred years to the day after the first train. The complete archive → · The fuller account of 1916 →

About this transcription

Source: The Times, 17 August 1916
Date taken from: the date written on the cutting itself
Archive item: letter-to-times-lampen-organ-subscription (1 image)
Transcription: Machine-transcribed in two independent passes, with a further check on disputed readings.
Status: Verified before publication — two independent transcriptions were compared, and any reading still in doubt is left unresolved and noted below rather than settled.

Transcribed verbatim, preserving the spelling, punctuation and capitalisation of the original. Square brackets mark a reading that is uncertain or a passage cut off by the edge of the scan. Where the text of a figure or a name could not be established, it is shown as unresolved rather than guessed.

Editorial notes

Signature and date as printed

E. DUDLEY LAMPEN, British Chaplain. Château d’Oex, August.

Uncertain readings

🔴 The two troop figures are NOT recoverable from this scan. The left edge of the column is cut off, so the leading digit of “[?]00 soldiers” and of “[?]00 in this little town” is physically absent from the image. Three separate transcription passes each produced a different confident answer — one read 100 and 300, another 400 and 600 — and a check on a 9× upscaled crop established that neither digit is on the page at all. Only the middle figure, “another 200 men this month”, is fully visible and certain. Do not cite the first or third figure without a better scan or another copy of the issue.

📊 What the surrounding record implies. The Times of 13 June 1916 reports “the 450 odd now lodged” at Château d’Œx, and the Greater Britain Messenger of July 1916 gives “a total of 357 men and thirty officers” arriving on 30–31 May. Against that, a reading of “some 400 soldiers … another 200 … thus have 600” is coherent, and “100 … 300” is not — there were already far more than 100 men in the valley by August. This is corroboration, not a reading: the digits remain absent from the scan and should be presented as unresolved.

“E. Dudley Lampen” — adjudicated. A first pass read “F.”; the letterform carries a bottom crossbar. Independently confirmed by his byline in the Greater Britain Messenger, July 1916: “By the Rev. E. Dudley Lampen, C.C.C.S. Chaplain.”
“Chalet Benvenuta” — adjudicated at zoom; an earlier pass read “Convenuta”.
“Cuénod’s Bank, Montreux” — an earlier pass rendered the town as “Mont-eux” (a line-break hyphen mistaken for part of the word).
“dangers through which each man has passed” — an earlier pass read “langours”/”languours”; the upscaled crop shows “dangers”, with the leading “d” clipped by the same left-edge crop.
Monetary sums £40 in hand and £300 needed are mid-line, fully visible, and certain.

Soldiers at Château d'Oex — The Times, 17 August 1916

Handwritten annotation

Questions answered