The period of the Reformation, down to about 1600, was, as has been said, “a real bad time for bell-founders,” and several of the important foundries, as at Bristol, Gloucester, and elsewhere, appear either to have been closed for a time or died out altogether. The chief cause of this was doubtless the dissolution of the monasteries, coupled with the operations of Edward VI’s commissioners, large numbers of bells being sold or converted into secular property. These were distributed among the parish churches, and many instances may be traced of second-hand bells still existing, as at Abberley, in Worcestershire, where there is an ancient bell from a Yorkshire monastery. It should also be remembered that very little church-building was done in the latter half of the century. On the other hand, the statement which has gained some currency, that the commissioners only left one bell in each parish church, is not borne out by facts. Many churches still possess three or even four mediaeval bells which must have hung untouched in their towers before and since the reign of Edward VI.
But this lapse in bell-founding was not invariable; the foundries at Leicester, Nottingham, Bury St. Edmunds, and Reading actually seem to have received a new lease of life, and 1560–1600 is almost their most flourishing period. This is especially the case at Leicester, where a well-known family named Newcombe were at work, succeeded by an equally celebrated founder named Hugh Watts, whose fine bells were deservedly famous. At Nottingham we have the dynasty of the Oldfields, lasting from 1550 to 1710; and at Reading a series of founders of different names, ending in a succession of Knights down to 1700. The Hatches of Ulcombe, in Kent, were another prosperous family, as were the Eldridges of Chertsey.
Forming the Mould.
Part of the Bell Founder’s Window in York Minster.
(See page [16].)
At Bury St. Edmunds, one Stephen Tonne reigned from 1560 to 1580. His foundry was, however, destined to yield to the sway of that at Colchester, which begins with Richard Bowler about 1590, and reached its culmination between 1620 and 1640, under the great Miles Graye, who has been called “the prince of bell-founders.” Numbers of his bells remain in Essex and Suffolk, his masterpiece being, by common consent of ringers, the tenor at Lavenham, in Suffolk. At Colchester, as in other foundries, the seven years of storm and stress—1642–1649—while the Civil War between Charles I and the Parliament raged in England, practically put an end to bell-founding. Siege and other troubles certainly hastened the end of old Miles Graye, who died in 1649, worn out by privation and bodily suffering. His grandson Miles kept on the foundry until 1686.
Turning to the West of England, we find the foundries at Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester, and Salisbury still in a flourishing condition. At Bristol George Purdue, a native of Taunton, was followed by Roger and William Purdue in the seventeenth century; the latter migrated to Salisbury about 1655, where he carried on the work of John Wallis and John Danton. Thomas Purdue, the last of the family, died at Closworth, in Somerset, in 1711, and on his tombstone are the words—