Christian Darnton

Philip Christian Darnton (born Philip Christian von Schunck; 30 October 1905 – 14 April 1981), also known as Baron von Schunck, was a British composer and writer. Amongst his admirers was Vaughan Williams. Early life and family He was born in Leeds as Philip Christian von Schunck, the son of Mary Gertrude Illingworth (1871–1952) and John Edward, Baron von Schunck (1869–1940), a landowner who renounced his title before the First World War. Christian’s paternal grandfather, Edward, Baron von Schunck, had been born in Leipzig, part of an old German family that had, since 1715, held a Barony in the Holy Roman Empire (Freiherr). He settled in Britain and married Kate Lupton, who had been born into the progressive, land-owning and political Lupton family and educated at the school of her relative Rachel Martineau. Edward died in 1889. Kate survived him until 1913, the eve of the First World War, and insisted in her will that their only son – John Edward, Baron von Schunck – change his surname to that of her father, Darnton Lupton, the former Mayor of Leeds. Thus he and his children dropped the noble von Schunck name in favour of the family name Darnton-Lupton; the surname Darnton was acq