One of the chief uses made of church bells in modern times is not strictly a religious use, though it is more or less associated with the Church’s seasons, particularly with Sundays and Christmas Day. But it has always been recognized that the secular use of bells, within certain limits, is permissible, as will be further seen in the next chapter.

Change-ringing is, as we have already noted, an entirely modern introduction, and is, moreover, confined to England. In pre-Reformation days we hear of guilds of ringers, as, for instance, at Westminster Abbey, in the reign of Henry III, where the brethren of the guild appear to have enjoyed their privileges since the time of Edward the Confessor. In smaller monastic or collegiate establishments clerics in minor orders were often entrusted with the duty of ringing the bells, as at Tong, in Shropshire (cf. Plate 30). But this kind of ringing was in no way scientific, nor were the fittings of the bells adapted for ringing in the strict modern sense.

The accompanying diagram (Plate 27; compare also Plate 28), showing the way in which a modern bell is hung, will serve to explain the method now adopted for ringing proper, as opposed to chiming. The headstock, or wooden block to which the top of the bell is firmly fixed (so that the bell cannot move independently of it), revolves by means of brass pivots, known as the “gudgeons,” in a socket made in the top of the framework. One of these pivots forms the axle of a large wooden wheel, half the circumference of which has a groove for the rope, one end of which is fixed in it, the other passing through a pulley down into the ringing-chamber. In mediaeval times half-wheels only were used, but the complete wheel seems to have been introduced by the fifteenth century, and single bells were “rung” in the sixteenth. Peal-ringing, as we know it, cannot be traced before the seventeenth.

The essential feature of ringing in peal is that the bell shall perform an almost complete revolution each time the rope is pulled, starting from an inverted position. To prevent its falling over again at the conclusion of the stroke, a vertical bar of wood or iron, known as the “stay,” is fixed to the side of the stock, which is checked by a movable bar in the lower part of the frame, called the “slider.” It is clear that in the course of each revolution the clapper will strike the side twice. Before the invention of the wheel, the bell was merely sounded by means of a lever connecting the rope with the stock, as is still done in ringing small bells, either as “ting-tangs,” or when hung in an open turret.

Before the peal can be started, the bells must be rung up or “raised” to the inverted position, which the ringer achieves by a series of steady strokes, each pull increasing in length until it is balanced; at the end of the peal this process is reversed. When bells are merely chimed they are not “raised,” but the rope is pulled each time sufficiently to allow one stroke of the clapper. By means of an ingenious apparatus invented by the late Canon Ellacombe, this can now be done by one man if necessary, the muscular effort required being reduced to a minimum.

But change-ringing is a real science, and entails long and assiduous practice and considerable muscular exertion. It is, in fact, one of the best forms of physical exercise conceivable, and must have proved a godsend in that respect to many men whose opportunities would otherwise be limited.

Its elementary principle is, of course, that the bells should be rung in succession, but in a varying order. The method in which the succession varies is the foundation of the various forms known vaguely to most of us as Grandsire Triples, Treble Bob-Major, and so on. They are founded on a recognized arithmetical basis, that of permutations, or the number of arrangements possible of any given number of objects. We know that three letters or numbers can be arranged in six different ways:

123 132
231 213
312 321

Thus, on three bells, only six changes can be rung so as to vary the order each time, and we must then begin over again. With four bells we have a choice of twenty-four changes, which might run as follows:

1234 3124 4321 4213
2134 1324 4312 4231
2314 1342 4132 2431
2341 3142 1432 2413
3241 3412 1423 2143
3214 3421 4123 1243

This method is known as “hunting the treble up and down,” and was invented by Fabian Stedman, a Cambridge printer, who printed in 1667 the earliest treatise on change-ringing. If the above table is carefully observed, it will be seen that the first bell, or treble, shifts its place by one each time, backwards or forwards, while the other three only change six times in all; in other words, if the treble was omitted it would be a peal of six changes on three bells.

When we come to rings of five, six, or eight bells, these changes are, of course, capable of greater variety. On five bells we may have 5 times 24, or 120 changes; on six, 6 times 120, or 720; on eight bells, 40,320; and so on. But in actual practice it is very rare to have more than five or six thousand rung, even if there are eight or more bells; about 1,600 changes can be rung in the course of an hour, and two to three hours’ consecutive work is as much as an ordinary ringer is capable of accomplishing. The essential feature of each set of changes is to bring the bells round to the order in which they started; as they would naturally do in the peal given above.

The result of the introduction of systematic and organized change-ringing was that companies or societies of ringers were very soon formed. So early as 1603 we hear of a company known as the “Scholars of Cheapside,” formed in London. In 1637 was founded a famous London Society, that of the “College Youths,” probably a revival of the one just named; its name is derived from some connection with Sir Richard Whittington’s College of the Holy Ghost, near Cannon Street. It was to them that Stedman dedicated his Tintinnalogia, the work already mentioned. There is still an energetic “Ancient Society of College Youths,” but it is not certain whether it can trace an actual descent from the older society. Another well-known ringing society is that of the “Cumberland Youths,” originally “London Scholars,” who changed their name in 1746 in compliment to the victor of Culloden.

Before leaving the subject, may I venture here a protest against the absurdities perpetrated by the artists of Christmas cards and illustrated magazines, in the attempt to render the form of a bell and the method in which it is rung? It is certain that few can ever have visited either belfry or ringing-chamber! Plate 29 gives a more truthful rendering of the method of ringing.

It may be fairly claimed as one of the far-reaching effects of the Church Revival that the conditions of our belfries and the conduct of our ringers will compare very favourably with what it was some forty or fifty years ago. Where the more accessible portions of the fabric were given over to dirt and neglect, and slovenliness was the chief feature of all ordinary forms of worship, it was hardly surprising that the towers and their internal arrangements were neglected, and frequently given over to more secular uses.

Nor was this merely a result of the general laxity and indifference of the “dead” period in the Church. There are not wanting signs that in the seventeenth century the standard of discipline among ringers was not high. We may recall how John Bunyan, at one time an enthusiastic member of the ringing company of Elstow, was constrained to abandon the pursuit, along with other enjoyments, as not tending to edification. That conviviality reigned in the belfry in those days is shown by the use of ringers’ jugs, some of which still exist, in which large quantities of beer were provided, and by the frequent entries in parish accounts of money spent on beer for the ringers. One of the bells at Walsgrave, in Warwickshire (dated 1702) has the inscription:

evidently intended for a gentle hint that the ringers suffered from thirst!

At the same time there was a feeling that the actual ringing should be properly carried out, which finds vent in the numerous “Ringers’ Rules,” mostly dating from the eighteenth century, which may be seen painted up on the walls of our belfries. They all follow very much on one pattern, and one of the best versions is at Tong, in Shropshire, which may be given as an example—

It is satisfactory to note that the rule against swearing was very generally included, though possibly honoured more in the breach than the observance; but it is probable that the objection to wearing a hat was more on the grounds of inconvenience to the ringers than of irreverence.

As late as 1857, the Rev. W. C. Lukis, one of the earliest writers on church bells, complained of his own county, Wiltshire, that “there are sets of men who ring for what they can get, which they consume in drink; but there is very little love for the science or its music; and alas! much irreverence and profanation of the House of God. There is no ‘plucking at the bells’ for recreation and exercise. Church-ringers with us have degenerated into mercenary performers. In more than one parish where there are beautiful bells, I was told that the village youths took no interest whatever in bell-ringing, and had no desire to enter upon change-ringing.”

Although less money is available nowadays for payments to ringers on special occasions, it may be feared that these remarks still hold good to some extent. But in other respects there is undoubted improvement. We do not now hear of “prize-ringing,” or ringing in celebration of a victory in the Derby or in a parliamentary election, and if our ringing-chambers do not always reach a high standard of decency, there is a marked improvement in the character and behaviour of the ringers themselves.