32 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



most cases, but a proportion of the observers would as blithely vote the 

 noise of a particular horn as very objectionable as others would just as 

 cheerfully class it as tolerable or agreeable. The experiments, in fact, 

 supported the view that the appraisement of noise is a matter of personal 

 opinion ; and this aspect is endorsed by the British Standard Glossary 

 which defines noise as ' sound undesired by the recipient.' Small blame 

 then if some of us find it difficult to distinguish between noise and certain 

 modern music. 



Complaints against noise are of course an old story, probably as old as 

 civilisation itself. While the acoustic conditions in the Ark do not appear 

 to have been put on record, there are numerous later Biblical references 

 to noise : Moses speaks of the ' noise of them that sing,' David refers to 

 ' the noise of water spouts ' and elsewhere enjoins us to ' sing and make 

 a joyful noise,' while Jeremiah bemoans that ' The noise is come ... to 

 make the cities of Judah desolate and a den of dragons.' Juvenal wrote 

 (a.d. 47) of the cost of buying sleep in Rome owing to the noise of herds 

 of cattle and rumbling waggons in the narrow winding streets. The 

 Oxford Dictionary gives a reference to ' noyse ' dating from 1297 : ' Of 

 trompes and of tabors ye sarazins made here so gret noyse that cristinemen 

 al destourbed were.' 



The clatter of the medieval town provoked restrictive regulations ; 

 we find embargoes on nocturnal horn blowing and wife beating in 

 Elizabeth's reign. The tumult of the streets is well illustrated by a 

 picture painted by Hogarth in 1741. In some towns in Germany noisy 

 occupations were zoned, though it is on record that Christian Thomasius 

 (born 1655) objected to the privilege of the learned professions of driving 

 from the neighbourhood noisy craftsmen, e.g. blacksmiths and musicians : 

 he held the view that those living in a city should accustom themselves 

 to its noise. Frederick the Great's famous and unsuccessful protest 

 against the noise of the Mill of Sans Souci will be recalled. A hundred 

 years ago, Jane Austen was graphically describing the traffic bedlam of 

 Bath. Complaints from City churches of the noise of stage coaches were 

 common in those days ; many of us are of course well aware of how 

 noisy steel tyres and horse shoes can be on cobbles or stone or granite 

 setts, and how great was the measure of relief which came with the 

 introduction of the pneumatic tyre. 



The Measurement of Noise. 



It is common knowledge that most noises are complex in character, 

 containing a variety of components which may be distributed over the 

 entire auditory ranges of frequency and intensity. Such a physical 

 constitution lends itself to objective measurement and analysis, but there 

 are, in addition, subjective factors of prime importance to the listener, 

 viz. pitch, timbre and loudness, and these sensations are not readily 

 appraisable. Experience indicates, however, that while the composition 

 of a noise is not to be ignored, sheer loudness is the determining factor in 

 most cases of annoyance caused by noise, so that the problem largely 

 resolves itself into the correlation of the sensation of noisiness (as assessed 



