THE CHURCH BELLS OF DORSET. 215 



which is on the Ford Abbey bell. I replied that the duties of a 

 bell were unpleasant, chiefly to be knocked about, and that the 

 bell prayed S. Margaret to make these duties pleasant. The 

 parallel of the Okeford Fitzpaine inscription at once occurred to 

 me. 



The later T. P. bells must be Purdue's, and those bearing 

 poetry link themselves to him by the old Sherborne tenor, recast 

 by him in 1670, inscribed : 



" By Wolsey's gift I measure time for all 

 To mirth : to grieffe : to Church I serve to call.' 



John Toesser, whose year in Dorset was 1684, when he was at 

 work for Lytchett Matravers and Winterborne Zelstone, describes 

 himself as " son of C. T." As Clement Tosiear appears in the 

 same business soon afterwards, there comes an inference that 

 John's father's name was also Clement. Towards the end of the 

 reign of George I. comes William. This family belongs to 

 Salisbury. 



Dorset may have some earlier bells from Reading, or even 

 from its predecessor, Wokingham. 



We are on sure ground, however, with Samuel Knight, who in 

 1686 " Fee Set" two bells for Wimborne Minster. Of these the 

 larger seems to be a recast, as he speaks of the former as 

 " added to y e five." Mr. Cocks* notes his earliest known bell 

 as dated 1684 at Stanford Dingley, Berks, and considers the 

 Wimborne pair as probably cast by T. B., possibly an earlier 

 Bilbie, whose initials they bear, for Samuel Knight. From the 

 same source we read of Samuel's migration in the latter years of 

 Queen Anne's reign from Reading to S. Andrew's, Holborn, 

 where he died in 1739. 



William Knight, whoever he may be, looks, from his surname, 

 to have some connection with Reading. There are more 

 William Knights than one, bell founders, there in earlier days. 



* Church Bells of B tides, p. 137. 



