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Bellfounder. Fun fact: big church bells are so huge, weighing a tonne up, that pre-industrial revolution they were too big to move. So they were frequently cas

Bellfounder. Fun fact: big church bells are so huge, weighing a tonne up, that pre-industrial revolution they were too big to move. So they were frequently cast in temporary moulds outside the church where they were going to be installed; archaeologists have found the furnaces. Bellfounders were itinerant and travel from site to site. Another fun fact: bellringing is dangerous; people have died from it. Before the peal is rung, the bell is rocked from side to side until it eventually balances in an unstable position, mouth up; to ring, you pull it off balance, help it go round, and then check it, mouth up again. Except... it's a tonne of metal. Once it starts moving, it's going to keep moving. Get the rope looped round your neck, and it'll quite happily hang you as it goes. For everything you ever wanted to know about bells, bellringing, changeringing, and the Fens of England, read Dorothy Sayers' The Nine Tailors; and the non-bell-related content is damn good, too.

pja 10y ago
Not that dangerous. I don’t think there’s been a bell-ringing death in my lifetime, although I have heard of the very occasional nasty accident. (My partner has rung church bells all her life & is very plugged in to this world. I’ll have to ask her...)
- jamessb 10y ago
  The most serious bells related accident I can find is a blast in a French foundry injuring 46 in 2009 [0]. Another hazard is that, with the exception of some ground-floor rings, most bells are rung from a ringing chamber in the tower accessed by a spiral staircase or ladder. This makes it difficult to remove a patient after a medical emergency (or an accident), and the easiest solution may be for a stretcher to be lowered through the trapdoor in the ringing chamber used to install the bells (there have been a couple of articles about drills [1, 2], and I know of one instance when this was done locally). There have been a couple of cases where people have been knocked unconscious: Tony Merrry at Charlbury in 2008 [3], and Helen Springthorpe at Bathampton in 2012 [4]; commenting in 2012, a CCBR spokesperson said that "I know of only one fatality in the past 50 years" [5]. [0]: https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/231-rw-5128.html https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/231-r... [1]: https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/750-rw-5258.html https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/750-r... [2]: https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/520-rw-5197.html https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/520-r... [3]: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/bell-ringer-comes-a-cropper-in-church-tower-accident-829313.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/bell-ringe... [4]: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breakingnews/offbeat/bellringer-rescued-after-accident-28919594.html http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breakingnews/offbeat/bellr... [5]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/10/helen-springthorpe-bell-ringing_n_2103954.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/10/helen-springthorpe-...
  - jamessb 10y ago
    There have also been a few cases where bells have fallen out of their frames, including at Kilmersdon in 2013 [1,2]. In Canada, this resulted in a fatal accident in 1999 [3]. [1]: http://treblesgoing.org.uk/kilmersdonaccident.html http://treblesgoing.org.uk/kilmersdonaccident.html [2]: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2507951/Elderly-bell-ringers-run-cover-bell-crashes-Somerset-church-tower.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2507951/Elderly-bell... [3]: http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/bell-tower-death-prompts-inspections-449 http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/bell-tower-death-pro...
analog31 10y ago
An additional hazard of bellringing was lightning. As I learned from a biography of Benjamin Franklin, folks believed that ringing the church bells during a storm would protect the town. If the rope got wet, then, well, the bell ringer became part of the electrical circuit. Franklin's lightning rod was credited with saving lives in Europe because of this.
- theoh 10y ago
  Somebody with EE or meteo experience may correct me on this, but the word "circuit" sounds wrong here. Isn't a lightning strike just a point-to-point current from charged clouds to ground (and in the other direction on the return stroke)?
Someone 10y ago
"pre-industrial revolution they were too big to move." A ton isn't too heavy (heavier guns were moved), but it was often easier to build the oven to melt the metal to make them near the church. An amazing story is how Filipe de Brito tried stealing the Great Bell of Dhammazedi, a (supposedly) 300,000 kg bell, in 1608 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bell_of_Dhammazedi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bell_of_Dhammazedi). I'm not sure what to believe of this story, but it would be amazing if such a bell were recovered from a river bed where it has been lying for four centuries.

pja 10y ago

Not that dangerous. I don’t think there’s been a bell-ringing death in my lifetime, although I have heard of the very occasional nasty accident. (My partner has rung church bells all her life & is very plugged in to this world. I’ll have to ask her...)

jamessb 10y ago
The most serious bells related accident I can find is a blast in a French foundry injuring 46 in 2009 [0]. Another hazard is that, with the exception of some ground-floor rings, most bells are rung from a ringing chamber in the tower accessed by a spiral staircase or ladder. This makes it difficult to remove a patient after a medical emergency (or an accident), and the easiest solution may be for a stretcher to be lowered through the trapdoor in the ringing chamber used to install the bells (there have been a couple of articles about drills [1, 2], and I know of one instance when this was done locally). There have been a couple of cases where people have been knocked unconscious: Tony Merrry at Charlbury in 2008 [3], and Helen Springthorpe at Bathampton in 2012 [4]; commenting in 2012, a CCBR spokesperson said that "I know of only one fatality in the past 50 years" [5]. [0]: https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/231-rw-5128.html https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/231-r... [1]: https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/750-rw-5258.html https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/750-r... [2]: https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/520-rw-5197.html https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/this-week/520-r... [3]: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/bell-ringer-comes-a-cropper-in-church-tower-accident-829313.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/bell-ringe... [4]: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breakingnews/offbeat/bellringer-rescued-after-accident-28919594.html http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breakingnews/offbeat/bellr... [5]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/10/helen-springthorpe-bell-ringing_n_2103954.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/10/helen-springthorpe-...
- jamessb 10y ago
  There have also been a few cases where bells have fallen out of their frames, including at Kilmersdon in 2013 [1,2]. In Canada, this resulted in a fatal accident in 1999 [3]. [1]: http://treblesgoing.org.uk/kilmersdonaccident.html http://treblesgoing.org.uk/kilmersdonaccident.html [2]: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2507951/Elderly-bell-ringers-run-cover-bell-crashes-Somerset-church-tower.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2507951/Elderly-bell... [3]: http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/bell-tower-death-prompts-inspections-449 http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/bell-tower-death-pro...

analog31 10y ago

An additional hazard of bellringing was lightning. As I learned from a biography of Benjamin Franklin, folks believed that ringing the church bells during a storm would protect the town. If the rope got wet, then, well, the bell ringer became part of the electrical circuit. Franklin's lightning rod was credited with saving lives in Europe because of this.

theoh 10y ago
Somebody with EE or meteo experience may correct me on this, but the word "circuit" sounds wrong here. Isn't a lightning strike just a point-to-point current from charged clouds to ground (and in the other direction on the return stroke)?

Someone 10y ago

"pre-industrial revolution they were too big to move." A ton isn't too heavy (heavier guns were moved), but it was often easier to build the oven to melt the metal to make them near the church. An amazing story is how Filipe de Brito tried stealing the Great Bell of Dhammazedi, a (supposedly) 300,000 kg bell, in 1608 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bell_of_Dhammazedi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bell_of_Dhammazedi). I'm not sure what to believe of this story, but it would be amazing if such a bell were recovered from a river bed where it has been lying for four centuries.