A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



his son, spelling his name lefferies. We also hear 

 of one John White of Bristol casting bells for Yat- 

 ton in Somersetshire in 1485 and 1531 ; his will 

 is dated 1540. In the iyth century the Purdues, 

 who lived at Salisbury and Winchester, set up a 

 bell-foundry at Bristol. Thirty-nine of their bells 

 still survive in churches in this county. Their 

 inscriptions were formed of large, flat letters, 

 with a plain cross and a vine-leaf pattern. Early 

 in last century a firm called Jefferies and Price 

 cast a few bells at Bristol, of which two, dated 

 1840, survive at Iron Acton. But no worthy 

 successors of the old bell-founders appeared in 

 any part of the county till the comparatively 

 recent revival of campanology, under the influ- 

 ence of Sir Edmund Beckett and the Rev. H. T. 

 Ellacombe, author of Church Bells of Gloucestershire. 



AOOOQO 91X9 O-o O O O C 



BELL ORNAMENTATION BY THE RUDHALLS 



Under their guidance both bell-founders and bell- 

 ringers have made enormous advances. There 

 is now in Gloucestershire a 'Diocesan Associa- 

 tion of Change-ringers,' founded in 1878, besides 

 the old Society of St. Stephen's Ringers at 

 Bristol, which still survives. 



Bell-founding is now studied with such care 

 that it has almost attained to the position of an 

 exact science. Thanks to his knowledge of 

 acoustics, the modern founder can cast his bells 

 with an accuracy that was impossible to his 

 mediaeval predecessors who, though some of their 



bells will never be surpassed, turned out products 

 of extremely varying quality. 



One of the most scientific and successful of 



RUNNING GRAPE ORNAMENTATION BY PURDUE 



these modern firms is that of Messrs. Llewellins 

 and James, who revived the art of bell-founding 

 at Bristol in 1875. At their works at Castle 

 Green they perform bell-founding of every class 

 and scale, from musical hand-bells to complete 

 rings. They also recast and tune old bells, and 

 do their own bell-fitting and hanging, their 

 frames being made either of seasoned oak, or of 

 steel and cast-iron. By following out scientific 

 principles Llewellins and James have arrived at a 

 formula which gives almost exact results as to 

 weight, dimensions, and tone. Slight differences 

 between the actual and the 

 calculated result in bell-found- 

 ing are unavoidable, owing to 

 the inequality of the moulding 

 medium which, being formed 

 of sand, is affected in varying 

 degrees by the pressure of the 

 fluid metal. 



At present most of the work 

 of this firm is in the West of England and Wales, 

 though some of it is found further afield. Bristol 

 possesses numerous examples of their art, includ- 

 ing a good light ring of six in St. Luke's Church, 

 Bedminster. They have also done work in 

 Gloucestershire at Painswick, Thornbury, and 

 Chipping Sodbury. Including its general en- 

 gineering department, this firm altogether em- 

 ploys about 1 80 workmen. The happy immunity 

 from foreign competition which it enjoys in its 

 bell department is due to the fact that bell- and 



PURDUE'S INITIAL 

 CROSS 



BELL MARK OF ROBERT PURDUE 



peal-ringing is a peculiarly English practice, and 

 not thoroughly understood in other countries. 



PINS 



Although the Gloucester pin manufacture was ous protective statutes from 1463 onward had 

 for two centuries the principal industry of the prohibited the importation of pins into England 

 city, its history does not, like that of some local and regulated their manufacture ; and in 1605 

 products, go back to any great antiquity. Vari- there were in the country as many as 464 pin- 



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