Transcribed by Emily Watts
[00:00:00] CHRIS: I think current day, we live in a golden age, we have digitisation We don't have to travel great distances to look at historical items anymore. We can just log onto our laptops, and we get images and information there.
[Ringing by the Society of Cambridge Youths]
Introducing the podcast
[00:00:19] CATHY: Hi, welcome to Fun With Bells, a podcast for bell ringers hosted by me, Cathy Booth.
Introductions
[00:00:25] CATHY: Today I am interviewing Chris Ridley, chair of the Central Council's Historical and Archive Work Group. Hello Chris.
[00:00:32] CHRIS: Hi Cathy
[00:00:33] CATHY: Hi. And later Gareth Davis will be joining us. He uses the archives of the work group. I interviewed Gareth before about his PhD, on the study of Cambridge Bellringers pay and habits, which was a fascinating episode, and I do recommend listening to that one as well.
Introduction to the CCCBR Work Group
[00:00:49] CATHY: But first of all, I'd like to know about all the work that the work group does. There's a lot, isn't there? So, what does the work group do Chris?
[00:00:57] CHRIS: It's following CRAG. It was set up incorporating a lot of the old bits of historical information that was on the central council and we're primarily interested in any historical information relating to bells and bell ringing. Not just for ringers, but for the general public as well.
The work group, when we set it up, obviously it's such a big topic area. So we decided the best way forward was to divide it into what we call sub work groups.
The Sub Work Groups
[00:01:24] CHRIS: And we have a number of these. For example,
we have one, sub work group on belfry artifacts, which is looking at peal boards, photographs found in belfries and similar sorts of historical bits of information.
We have another work group looking at biographies, ringers' biographies. And then
we have the third one, which we generally call historical information.
The Work Group's Website
[00:01:45] CHRIS: And this really involves setting up a new website, and we're trying to bring in all the historical information, which at the moment is scattered around a number of sites.
So, there's one source of information that everybody can go to.
[00:01:59] CATHY: You've mentioned a website and people might want to go to it, so we'll put it in our show notes. But could you tell us the website?
[00:02:07] CHRIS: Yes, it's www.history.cccbr.org.uk
I must give a little health warning. This is a fairly new website and we're still bringing information in.
So, if you look at it and you think, "Oh, there's one or two things aren't on there yet." Bear with us. It does take time to incorporate a lot of information, and we're all volunteers. So, the people involved are doing it when they have the spare time to do it.
[00:02:37] CATHY: Yep. Yep. That's understood.
Further Sub Work Groups
[00:02:38] CHRIS: Other things obviously, in our remit, we have newspaper extracts, under historical information. This is the work of John Eisel. And listeners may be aware that five volumes were published about 10 years ago called Order and Disorder, which covered historical newspaper extracts till about the mid-1800s.
[00:02:59] CATHY: I wanted to ask you about that, 'cause that's such a great title, Order and Disorder. It conjures up all sorts of images. So, I'll ask you about that a little bit later.
[00:03:07] CHRIS: But anyway, since that they were published, we've done a lot more work and we talk about this in a minute, which means we've got about 40% more material now. And John has kindly agreed to let us all have that online so that we have up to 1799 there already. And we're gonna put more years on over the next few months.
The fourth subgroup area really is what we call the library collection.
Which is the Central Council library, which is roughly around 4,500 books.
[00:03:35] CATHY: Wow.
[00:03:35] CHRIS: And we also have friends of the library, which is a group of people who support the library and receive a newsletter every year and information about activities of the library.
And finally, we have a sub work group, which we've been trying to set up on recordings, that's recordings of bells and oral histories of ringers who have had an interesting career in ringing.
Reliance on volunteers
[00:03:56] CHRIS: But all these work groups; really, we do suffer from just relying on volunteers.
And the recordings is a good example where we have nobody has stepped forward to help us with that work yet.
So, all these work groups really are looking for more people with an interest in them to take this work forward.
Now, the work isn't onerous.
We only have four Zoom meetings a year as a Historical and Archive Work Group. And these subgroups just work ad hoc amongst themselves dividing up duties.
So really if you have a particular interest in an area, do get in contact, and you'll find all our information on the website.
And we'll actually point you in the right direction and you can pursue an area of interest, that we would also like to see the fruits of and put on our website in due course.
Chris' Personal Interest in the Work
[00:04:44] CATHY: I'm gonna ask you another question then, what is it that you get out of being involved in the history?
[00:04:50] CHRIS: Well, I, I was on the formal library committee and when I joined that committee, 'cause I have an interest in history generally, I discovered that a lot of people on there [00:05:00] have an encyclopaedic knowledge of ringing books and historical information. So I came to the conclusion there's no point in me trying to become an expert there because they're already experts.
So, I turned my attention to ringing certificates and badges, metallic badges, which really haven't been explored. And I've spent the last 10 years building up catalogues for both those areas. So, I suppose it's having an interest in history, but then having an interest in a particular area and actually, looking into that area and building up the knowledge of items that fall into that category.
[00:05:34] CATHY: And I guess you come across a lot of stories attached to all the different things that you're coming across there.
[00:05:39] CHRIS: Of course, yes. The newspaper extracts. It's not just peal reports, it's all the controversies over the years, what's been going on, new bells put in at towers. Problems they've had with 101 different things, paid ringing, disputes with the clergy, disputes with the law.
So, there's fascinating facts in there. Don't just think because we talk about, newspaper extract, this is gonna be lots of peal reports. That's not the case at all.
[00:06:04] CATHY: No. So just going through each of those areas one at a time and just to talk about each of those.
The Biographies Project
[00:06:10] CATHY: Can you tell me about, first of all, I'm just picking one at random, the biographies project.
[00:06:15] CHRIS: The Biographies project has really got two historical bases to it. Originally the Central Council decided to write a biographies of all the CCCBR members. And that's been going on for a number of years now. John Eisel and myself, another little project we got involved with in the nineties was actually going through all the periodicals.
I'm gonna talk about periodicals. The Ringing World, the Bell News, Campanalogia, The Bell Ringer, Church bells, all these newspapers going back to the 1870s extracting the index of all the ringers' obituaries that appeared in there. And we created the obituaries index as a consequence.
And that means if you want to look up somebody from, say a hundred years ago that rang at your local tower, you can search. If it's in the index, it'll tell you where to go for that, for that information. Now what we're doing is part of our historical information development, is to start linking those references direct to the index so that when you click on the index, you'll be able to look straight at the extract itself. That's work in progress at the moment.
But of course, biographies isn't just about ringers, former ringers, the general public have interest as well. And we often find people ringing up saying, I my grandfather I understand was a ringer. Can you tell me something about him?
Even though they're not ringers themselves. So, I think biographical information is really a hot topic at the moment.
And it's an area we're trying to develop, but again, we need more volunteers to help us with all this work.
[00:07:46] CATHY: Yes. yes. It must be really interesting to find out about your Granddad who rang and, all the facts about what his ringing career involved. Yes.
[00:07:55] CHRIS: Also, we can share, if we know that they rang peals or rang at a particular tower.
[00:08:00] We can show them historical imagery that are connected with that.
And of course, that then adds to their interest. And a few years ago we had somebody whose relation had been a ringer at St. Paul's Cathedral. So, we could take them along and show them their name on the boards there, et cetera. And it made the whole good evening for them really.
[00:08:17] CATHY: Yes. No, that sounds wonderful.
The Roles of Honour Project
[00:08:19] CATHY: The next one that I wanted to know about was the Roles of Honour project.
[00:08:24] CHRIS: That's as most people will know as being a project that Alan Regin has been working on for many years.
And it all accumulated in the Ringing Remembers project in 1918. And that's, basically the idea of that was to try and recruit enough ringers to replace the 1,400 ringers we lost in the First World War.
In the end, it was a very successful campaign and attracted 3000 new ringers.
Not all of them who stayed the course, of course, but we still have a number of residual ringers from that.
But Alan basically researched all the names and continues to do so and writes them all up. So again, there is a wealth of information there on the website, that he has put together over many years.
[00:09:08] CATHY: Yes. And that's the ringers who died in those wars, isn't it?
[00:09:12] CHRIS: That's right. And if you're looking at this week's Ringing World, there is a little bit of a plug. We need an extra volume now because of all of Alan's work to write up, I think it's about an extra 80 names, and we are asking for some crowdfunding for that.
[00:09:25] CATHY: Ah.
[00:09:26] CHRIS: To pay for the book and the writing because it's all done in beautiful, calligraphy, it doesn't come cheap these days.
[00:09:31] CATHY: Right. So that'll be a Ringing World from January.
[00:09:34] CHRIS: Today's Ringing World. Friday the 19th.
[00:09:38] CATHY: Yes. So, we're giving away that this won't be released until about two months later.
[00:09:42] CHRIS: Oh.
[00:09:42] CATHY: Okay. So, people will be able to look at that.
The Certificates and Badges Project
[00:09:44] CATHY: Then the next one that I was interested is the project that you mentioned earlier about the certificates and badges.
[00:09:50] CHRIS: Yeah, if you go back in ringing, a lot of change ringing evolved, in the early 1600s as a consequence of the reformation in the mid 1500s. And our break with the Catholic church meant greater freedoms.
And we had this development of change ringing. Now ringing became very secular. In those years, and if you get to the middle of the early 1800s, you will find that actually the Church of England itself had fallen into a little bit disrepair. Services often weren't held.
Buildings were in a poor state. And this led to what is known as the Oxford Movement. And a lot of Victorian restoration of churches as a consequence of that. And the church was put on a much firmer footing. And of course, an inevitable consequence of that was the establishment of what is known as the belfry reform movement and that was from about the 1850s onwards. and the consequence of that was the setting up of the territorial societies we know today.
[00:10:47] CATHY: That's the Guilds and Associations.
[00:10:49] CHRIS: The guilds and associations we find.
So, one of the earliest ones in 1874 was the Devonshire Guild, and they're celebrating their hundred and 50th anniversary this year in 2024.
And they produced a certificate at the time 'cause obviously, they were very keen to, attract members.
And at the same time, it helped to align church service ringing with normal ringing.
So, although we still have a secular element to ringing ie. peals, et cetera, we do ring a lot more for services now, and that's the prominent, activity of most bell ringers.
But over the years, of course, lots of guilds were set up. Guilds have amalgamated. And certificates have really evolved over the time.
There's some very attractive designs. One I particularly like is the Hertfordshire, Association and there's, if you want to look on the website, they're all on there. And you can actually look at the different designs and you can see how we go from the Victorian, typical Victorian-type designs through Cubism and all these other developments right through to the modern day.
When a lot of certificates are obviously computer generated. Now, whether you like an A4 computer-generated certificate or some of the really large old certificates that were printed is a matter of taste. But I think all of it is a fascinating history.
And alongside that, obviously Associations, Societies, issued metallic badges that people wore. Now, these were very common until about the 1980s when everybody started to wear, polo shirts with logos on instead.
And badges seemed to have been disappearing. and I was very concerned as people die, often these things are thrown away.
So in the 1980s, I started just to catalogue and build up all known examples. And again, you have some fascinating designs in the history of them, how they've evolved over time. One I particularly like if you look on the website is the Stedman Doubles Peal Band badge.
And if you look at the outside of the badge, it's Stedman's slow and quick work is the is the outline of the badge, and it's a very attractive badge itself. So again, there's a lot of fascinating design and historical background to all of this. So those two catalogues, which we've developed, are of interest and they're great for publicity as well.
You can actually use them on open tower days to general public walking past see these things and it attracts them in.
Other projects, which will be appearing shortly are historical ringing prints, Society logos, which in a sense is a supplementary to the badges, but what we get on letterheads.
And again, some very attractive designs and anybody who's thinking of designing anything for their own tower or Association.
I f you wanna have a quick look through, when they appear on the website, it gives you lots of ideas about designs you might want to use.
Some of them are quite amusing. One I like is the Leeds university badge, which is a bell wheel with an upside down beer glass on a bell on it which I thought was a very typical student
[00:13:52] CATHY: Oh, excellent!
The Newspaper Extracts Project
[00:13:53] CATHY: So, the next project I wanted to ask you about was the newspaper extracts.
We talked a little bit about that earlier in the interview, but if you could tell me, a little bit about how that developed as a project?
[00:14:05] CHRIS: Well historical newspapers, if you go back to the 18th century, I don't know if you've ever looked at them, but they're very hard to read. They're very small print. There's no pictures. And they contain information covering a massive range of topics. Now Cyril Wratten, who, unfortunately, died a few years ago spent about 40 years as well as other people researching these. And he entered all the details on index cards as he came across references. After Cyril died, John Eisel took on the project and decided that actually all these cards need to be typed up. Which he started to do. If you go back about 15 years, the British Library started to digitize all this newspaper archives, which allowed us then to do searches on keywords, which produced a massive wealth of information in addition to all the historical stuff that Cyril and various other ringers created over the years.
And John has been very diligently in typing all these up as well as taking contributions from others who have researched the newspaper extracts digitally, as well as the actual copies. As I explained earlier, this created five volumes of Order and Disorder, which was published by the council.
We're now adding 40% of information to that. So, it's a huge wealth of information. On the website currently is up to 1799 and next week or the week after, which is late January, we hope to have up to about 1820 on. And then finally, we will mostly go up to about 1870 when we have the first periodicals coming in, and therefore newspaper extracts become less important.
But as I was saying earlier, the information that is fascinating, it's controversies and disputes.
Installations of new rings. For example, I ring a Battersea church, and the bells there were cast the other side of the river Thames. And there's a great debate over many years about whether the bells were brought across the river by boat or over the old wooden bridge at Battersea.
And we managed to come across a newspaper extract, describing the bells coming over the wooden bridge with a band and everything else.
So, you do actually fill in some of the gaps looking at some of this information.
[00:16:19] CATHY: Yes. Yes. And it's called Order and Disorder because of all these controversies, I guess.
[00:16:24] CHRIS: Well, that's why John chose that title. I think under the new website, it'll just be shown as, newspaper extracts.
[00:16:31] CATHY: Oh, okay. It doesn't quite sound quite so exciting that way.
[00:16:35] CHRIS: Well, I suppose newspaper extracts because, it's the differentiate from the published volumes but it's all the same thing.
[00:16:40] CATHY: . Okay. So, you'll still find some Order and Disorder there. Great.
The Peal Board Recording Project
[00:16:47] CATHY: Now the Peal board recording project, I saw an article in the Ringing World about that. But if you could tell me a little bit about what that's about and how people get involved.
[00:16:58] CHRIS: That's been led by somebody called Richard Andrew, who has basically gone out to ask people in their area to go around and take pictures or, whatever is appropriate imagery of peal boards in the towers.
And the idea there is to load them up onto a database. We did actually think about whether we should just do particularly interesting peal boards ie from a historical perspective or from a design perspective.
But the general consensus was if you go into a belfry, you want to just do all the images you can.
Anyway, any images we get, we're gonna load them on a database, and the long-term aim is to link these to peal records and tower records, so you'll be able to have an interactive database to look at all this information.
Now Richard has made a number of contacts in regions who are collating information for those regions. But again, it's volunteers in lots of areas. We don't have volunteers yet.
Some counties, I mean for example Norfolk's got some fantastic historical billboards, we need to capture this information before it's lost.
You do have fires in churches, or churches become, disused and peal boards are lost or moved out somewhere else.
I was at a cafe in North London a few years ago, and there was two peal boards in the cafe, which came from a local church, just as decorations on the wall.
So again, if you capture this information, It's useful historical information to keep, and again, if you compare it with a historical record, sometimes what's written on a peal board can be different to what appears in a newspaper extract to what appears in a peal database.
[00:18:35] CATHY: Oh, So
[00:18:36] CHRIS: So
[00:18:36] CATHY: What does history do then?
[00:18:38] CHRIS: Well, history has to make some judgements about which is the most likely the correct date or the correct name of somebody.
It's all extra information that helps you to fine-tune and sometimes address some of the gaps in our knowledge.
[00:18:49] CATHY: Yep, absolutely
[00:18:51] CHRIS: But again, I mean of the designs on some of these old peal boards are absolutely magnificent and, just to look at them are fantastic. The artwork absolutely beautiful.
[00:19:00] CATHY: Okay, were there any other projects that we should talk about or.
The Illuminated Peal Books Project
[00:19:02] CHRIS: One thing at the back of my mind is illuminated peal books.
And the College Youths have one. The St. Martin's Guild have a really excellent one and you can find all this information on their own websites. But if you look at those again, some of the artwork is absolutely fantastic.
And it'd be nice if you could actually start to collate some of the best examples from various society illuminated peal books and have them again, for historical information. But also, from a design perspective. And I think these things are great to use on publicity material cause they're really attractive and people walking past if you have a tower open day if you have good imagery, it draws them in as well as hearing the bells being rung of course.
The Work Group's Need for Volunteers
[00:19:44] CATHY: So now I wanted to ask you about the work group, about, how many people there are on it and, how people would get involved.
[00:19:54] CHRIS: Okay, well currently 14 members of the work group, includes Beverly Faber, who's our, executive on the Central Council; sponsor.
If you look on the website we've mentioned earlier, you'll see our contact details. if you send an email to me, then I'll obviously point you in the right direction. If you give an idea of where your interests might lie, we can send you to the right person who is coordinating that subgroup work.
Or if you have an idea for a new project, which you don't think's there, do contact us. We're always willing to set up new subgroups. Any historical information we're interested in, and we just need just general volunteers. And even if you're not certain, do contact us because you can dip your toe into an area.
If you decide it's not for you, that's fine. You don't have to be a member of the Central Council. We can co-opt you onto it.
So, if you have an interest, do contact us. Have a chat, let's see where it goes. I'm sure you'll find it fascinating and really interesting.
[00:20:53] CATHY: Was there anything else that you think we need to cover before I ask you the last question?
The Move of the Library to Loughborough
[00:20:58] CHRIS: Something we haven't mentioned, the move of the library to Loughborough.
[00:21:01] CATHY: So where are the records and the artefacts that you've got for the collections held and how do people see them?
[00:21:09] CHRIS: The library collection currently is with the library steward, resides in Shropshire.
Now the collection has been growing over the years. As I mentioned earlier. We have about 4,500 books alone.
And actually, somebody having it in their private home is really becoming untenable. Been in negotiations with The Loughborough Belfry Museum, listeners may be aware that the Loughborough Bell Foundry Trust has received a huge heritage grant for restoring buildings there.
And part of that restoration will be to create a new bell museum and archive facility. And the archive facility will have not just the Central Council library in there, but also other material, from other collections.
It'll also have a reading room so people will be able to go and actually do their own research.
The Library Steward
[00:21:59] CHRIS: But obviously we still need a library steward to answer enquiries. Alan Glover, who's the current library steward, is stepping down in September.
So, we are currently looking for one or more library stewards.
You don't have to live in Loughborough. You can actually live elsewhere in the country because a lot of enquiries can be answered online. Obviously if somebody lives near Loughborough, that would be ideal. So that if, somebody can't make a visit themselves, they can always ask a question and the library steward can go and look in the library for them. So exciting times.
The Future of the Central Council Library
[00:22:34] CHRIS: The first time in the Central Council library's history, it will not be in a private home anymore. It'll be in a proper archive facility. And people will be able to go and do their own research. Now a lot of material is available digitally because the library also contains information that is not online at the moment.
For example, runs of annual reports for the, ringing Associations and Guilds, so a fascinating resource. I'm sure most people will find it useful if they're looking up general information.
Access to Badges and Certificates
[00:23:05] CATHY: And would people be able to see these badges and certificates that you've referred to?
[00:23:09] CHRIS: Some of them, yes. The catalogues that are online are really an accumulation of any imagery we've managed to get. Obviously, we get emails in saying, I have a badge, which is not in your collection. Here's an image of it and here's some background information. So that will go into the catalogue, even though we don't have a copy ourselves, but our collections are growing all the time as we keep adding to them.
So, the bottom line is, yes, you will be able to see some examples, but not necessarily every example in the catalogue, because they may not be held by the, council itself.
Chris' Choice of When to Visit History
[00:23:42] CATHY: So, we're going to be talking to Gareth about how this material is used, but I want to ask you one last question, Chris. if you could live or visit any time in Bell ringing history, what year would you choose, or what period would you choose and why?
[00:23:57] CHRIS: That's a difficult question. I'm fascinated by the 18th century. The 1700s really. There's a massive growth in change ringing, lots of change ringing bells were put into towers. We had a lot of ringing controversies. A lot of the old societies were fighting amongst themselves to be the first to ring new methods or special peals in various things.
So I'm fascinated by the 18th century generally. And it was also a time of great change, science and arts across the country. So it's a fascinating period and I've always had an interest in that era. Having said that, I think current day, we live in a golden age, we have digitisation.
We don't have to travel great distances to look at historical items anymore. We can just log onto our laptops and we get, images and information there. So, I'm torn between the 18th and the, the, 2020/ first centuries. Really they're both excellent periods.
[00:24:52] CATHY: Excellent. Good.
The CCCBR Work group’s Website
[00:24:54] CATHY: And of course, as we said, people are gonna be able to see a lot of the material that you've accumulated online on your website, which I'll repeat the website again. It's www.history.cccbr.org.uk.
[00:25:11] CHRIS: That is correct.
[00:25:11] CATHY: Thank you so much, Chris.
[00:25:13] CHRIS: Well, I hope that's given a brief overview. I mean, all I can say to anybody who's interested either in information or in joining the work group is have a look at the website and you'll find a wealth of information on there to point you in the right direction.
Interview with Gareth Davies
[00:25:26] CATHY: So, thank you very much, Chris. I'm now turning to Gareth. Who's a bell ringing historian and also on the work group. So maybe Gareth, you could describe your role on the work group and, then how you've used work group's collections.
[00:25:41] GARETH: As you'll have heard from Chris, the bell ringers are absolutely fantastic at collecting information about bell ringing, whether it's certificates or peal boards or whatever it is.
The Importance of Preserving Information
[00:25:52] GARETH: And that's an absolutely essential part of what we do. Unless we preserve that information, it's lost forever. And I think Chris touched on the point, if we're gonna have increasing numbers of church closures, then much of the material on peal boards, for instance, could easily disappear.
The Use of the Work Group's Collections
[00:26:07] GARETH: But there's also a question about what we do with that information and how we encourage people to use it and the kinds of uses that they might put it to. So, the bit of the work group that I'm interested in is actually how we disseminate, what we're doing. And I suppose this is a classic example of one of the ways we might do that. But also how we can encourage people to use it.
Encouraging Young Historians
[00:26:31] GARETH: And I've got a particular interest in how we make sure that we get the kind of bell historians of the future. I suspect if you did a quick survey of the age of the people who write articles of the Ringing World about history, they're more likely to be over 50 than under 20.
Maybe the historians of the future will emerge, but anything we can do to give 'em a little shove would be, very useful obviously.
The Importance of Making Connections
[00:26:55] GARETH: I think for me the really useful bit about the material that the has been collected is the way that you can make connections between it. And the wealth of stuff that's being created.
So in my own research, for example, I'm regularly referring to the collections of Order and Disorder, as you say, rather not quite so interestingly titled newspaper extracts, but it's a very adequate description of what they are. They often link to the names of people who may be found on peal boards.
Occasionally you have to browse into Ancestry or some of the other, family history things to get more information about them. But then particularly in my case, there are materials that are really very hard to get hold of unless they're in the Central Council library.
And up until now I've been, the system's been fantastic that, you can get stuff mailed to you from the collection and then send it back again. I've been doing a PhD about the history of bell ringing. In Cambridge, there are a number of theses about bell ringing, which are held in the Central Council library and are very difficult to get from anywhere else.
There's a wealth of information in the various databases, whether it's the Felstead database of historic peals or in the other materials that the Ringing World holds in Campanalogia and the early ringing, publications, which are all available freely online on the Central Council website. Those have been essential in putting together the kind of whole picture of what was happening in my case, in Cambridge, but would work for anywhere in the country really.
How the Work group's collections might be used
[00:28:28] CATHY: So, going back to how the materials might be used, you talked about use by bell ringers and also by the general public.
[00:28:38] GARETH: Let's start with bell ringers as a constituency to think about the kinds of things that they do. I think most bell ringers are quite interested in what's happening in their own tower and how things happened. and if they aren't, they should be.
And there's a kind of general interest in just knowing a bit more about the ringers that preceded you in your tower and why the ringing room is upstairs or in a gallery or wherever and how that came about.
Or, even why you have a particular colour of sallies. People don't think about these questions, but it's interesting to think about whether there's actually a reason behind some of this stuff. So, there's that kind of general interest, it becomes more serious.
For example, think about the number of restoration projects which get public funding through the lottery or wherever. Very often these days, those are coming with a requirement to do some heritage research to make information available. Often that's just a kind of booklet I was looking at a couple yesterday that had been produced for a particular project in Suffolk.
It can be much more extensive, like the kind of display that's been put up at St. Peter Mancroft as part of their major restoration. People need to be able to research that and find the information to do that. And there is more than enough information out there to allow them to put together a really good story to go with their grant application.
[00:30:00] I think the bit we're missing at the moment, and this is not necessarily gonna be a quick fix, is to actually provide guides to people about how to do that research. Where they might find the information. So, we're making a lot of information available, but there's more we can do to actually explain where it is, how it fits together, how you might use it in particular contexts.
So that's just kind of one example of where bellringers might be interested because they've got a genuine need to find out. The other constituency, which in a way is I find more interesting, partly because I wanted to do my own research as well, is how we encourage people who aren't ringers to make use of the resources.
Now as Chris has mentioned, the really obvious one about this is family history. There is a huge interest in family history, and people will research it on Ancestry and the other kinds of systems all through the local record offices. but a lot of the materials that we've got actually fill out those people's lives. Suddenly they became real people. Their names are actually on boards in a tower from a hundred years ago. we know about some of their exploits through the early bell ringing periodicals, so they're not just a name on the page anymore.
We can actually fill in a small part. Perhaps a slightly odd part to many people, of their lives. But again, we need some guides for people. And one of the things I've got at the back of my head is producing a guide for Family History Societies to bell ringing records, which would be useful to anybody actually, but would explain where they can find these things easily.
Use by Academic Historians
[00:31:33] GARETH: So that's one of the longer-term aims for the group, I suppose the other group of people is there are actually people who do history for a living, whether they're students at university or lecturers or wherever. One of the things that really surprised me when I started doing my own PhD was how many academics are actually interested and have written about ringing, and perhaps some aspects that we [00:32:00] might not immediately think of. but to take an example, who'd have thought that the development of bell ringing in the 19th century would've attracted the attention of historians of masculinity and femininity?
[00:32:14] CATHY: Okay.
[00:32:14] GARETH: And I won't go into the detail about why it did, but it's all to do with the kind of move from late 18th century views of what was masculine and late 19th century views, where it was more about muscular Christianity and men with big beards.
And I think there's lots of areas that would be of interest to, to bell ringers as well. So I was struck while I was doing some research. Why was it that the bell ringers in Cambridge in 1611 couldn't find any bell metal to add an extra bell? And ended up having to buy a bell from another church as the only way of being able to change the bell metal and the church warden accounts record that they went around the country trying to buy bell metal.
Now, was this a one-off? Was it just a, a blip or was it related to the production of copper and tin at the time? And in fact, there does seem to be, I had a quick look just for interest. There does seem to have been an issue with the amount of copper and tin that was available at the beginning of the 17th century.
So maybe this wasn't just a Cambridge problem, maybe it was a more general problem. But I'm not a historian of early metal, but maybe somebody would be interested in that.
Can we explain the development of new rings of bells related to where foundries were situated at the end of the 18th century and how close they were to canals and turnpikes and other things?
How did transport play a part in it? These are much bigger questions that can be answered even by the materials we've got, but they trigger the kinds of questions the historians might be interested.
[00:33:56] CATHY: So how bell ringing fits into the wider what's going on? Yes.
[00:34:02] GARETH: Exactly, and I think that's one of the bits that I think we're not always good at, of recognizing that both bell ringing affected wider social situations, but also that bell ringing was itself constrained and or encouraged by the situation that appeared at any particular time.
Chris mentioned belfry reform. That was an external influence on ringing that had effect in the way it worked. So those wider questions of the things that interest me, but you can only ask those wider questions if you've got that wealth of material sitting below it to help you answer it.
And I think that's what the Central Council has been great at, is actually preserving that material and making sure it is available there to be used by anybody who has any particular interest in this or can be encouraged to, to have it.
[00:34:50] CATHY: Was there anything else that you wanted to say, Gareth?
Encouraging Young People to Take an Interest in History
[00:34:52] GARETH: I suppose just perhaps a little bit about, my interest in getting younger people to take an interest in history. And I think some of that just starts with getting them to be observant about what they see when they're in the tower, and where they're ringing. And if they're learning, they've got time sitting around, encourage them to look at the environment and ask questions about why things are the way they are, the way they're different.
So we've got in mind, a kind of publication, a bit like the old I spy books, which encourage people to look and collect different aspects. Can you find a 17th-century peal board? Can you find an 18th-century one? Why does the spiral staircase go clockwise? Those kinds of things that just encouraging people to start thinking about the things that affect bell ringing, but maybe most of us don't take any notice of.
Are the bells in a west tower? Are they in a central tower? Are they in a detached tower? Can you collect examples of each of those?
Where are they, those kinds of things? So, it's a, it's almost, it's a collection.
[00:35:55] CATHY: Yes.
[00:35:55] GARETH: Challenge if you like, but also in the context of trying to point people to [00:36:00] look at things. Can they find a stained-glass window that commemorates bell ringers killed in the First World War, for example? Now, some of these things are gonna be very difficult to find. Some of them are gonna be very straightforward. But just getting them to think about the different circumstances in which ringing happens and the different kinds of churches and the different kinds of ringing rooms and those kinds of things. It's just designed to encourage observation. And, hopefully to start asking some why questions.
We do a lot of what and how and where and when. I'm interested in the why.
[00:36:38] CATHY: Why did that happen?
[00:36:39] GARETH: Why, why are the bells rung from, a gallery? Now, the answer these days is because they wanted to put a kitchen on the ground floor. So there are those kinds of things that I think are very, we can start in a very simple way.
So that's a project that's on my radar and I'm currently working on at the moment, and I've just recruited two young people to help me make sure that we don't write it for 70-year-olds.
Gareth's Choice of When to Visit History
[00:37:02] CATHY: So the last question if you could live in or visit any time in bell ringing history, when would you choose and why?
[00:37:09] GARETH: Okay. I have a very specific date in mind, so it would have to be Cambridge. Because that's my main, history interest. And I would go back to the 30th of August 1630, and I would stand outside the University Vice Chancellor's Court and wait for the emergence of John Hall. Who was a bell ringer in Cambridge in the first 40 years of the 17th-century.
And I would take him to the pub, and I would ask him to tell me everything he knows about the development of change ringing, because that's a period where change ringing was developed, but we're still very hazy about what was being rung when and whatever. And the reason John Hall was in the University court was that although he was the church sexton, he had been taken to court for throwing a dead cat into the church.
[00:38:00] CATHY: Ooh, why?
Why did he do that?
[00:38:03] GARETH: That's another question I'd ask him. 'cause we don't know the answer to that one either. He was clearly having some personal problems at the moment. It was a one of my hesitations about going there and why I wouldn't want to stay too long is it was a period of plague years and quite a few of his family had been killed at that period. So, he may not have been quite in his right mind, but he started, he appears have started ringing at about 1600 and it would be fascinating to ask him about bell ringing in that kind of early 30 years of the 17th century and find out more about it but I definitely want to come home again afterwards.
[00:38:41] CATHY: Brilliant. Yeah. You wouldn't want to catch the plague?
[00:38:43] GARETH: Absolutely
[00:38:43] CATHY: No. Okay. Thank you so much, Gareth.
[00:38:46] GARETH: Pleasure.
Thank you to Chris Ridley and Gareth Davies
[00:38:47] CATHY: Thank you to my guests, Chris Ridley and Gareth Davis, for telling us all about the work of the Central Council's Historical and Archive Work Group. If you've enjoyed this episode, then please share it.
Credits
[00:39:01] CATHY: This podcast was put together by a team. Special thanks go to Anne Tansley Thomas, Emily Roderick, John Gwynne, Emily Watts, and the Society of Cambridge Youths for the ringing at the beginning of the show. And for the video at the end of the show of the ringing by the Lilliputter's Guild YouTuber, Simon Edwards.
Thank you.
[bells ringing call changes] [00:40:00]