At St. Peter's-le-Bailey, Oxford, four bells were sold towards finishing the tower, and in 1792 a large bell was put up, with this inscription:—
"With seven more I hope soon to be
For ages joined in harmony."
But this very reasonable wish has not yet been realized; whereas at St. Lawrence's, Reading, when two bells were added to form a peal of ten, on the second we find—
"By adding two our notes we'll raise,
And sound the good subscribers' praise."
The occasion of the erection of the Westminster Clock-tower, is said to have been as follows:—A certain poor man, in an action for debt, being fined the sum of 13s. 4d., Radulphus Ingham, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, commiserating his case, caused the court roll to be erased, and the fine reduced to 6s. 8d., which being soon after discovered, Ingham was amerced in a pecuniary mulct of eight hundred marks, which was employed in erecting the said bell-tower, in which was placed a bell and a clock, which, striking hourly, was to remind the judges in the hall of the offence of their brother. This bell was originally called Edward; "but," says a writer in the "Antiquarian Repertory," "when the Reformation caused St. Edward and his hours to be but little regarded; as other bells were frequently called Tom, as fancied to pronounce that name when stricken—that at Lincoln, for instance, and that at Oxford—this also followed the fashion, of which, to what I remember of it before it was hung up, I may add another proof from a catch made by the late Mr. Eccles, which begins—
"'Hark, Harry, 'tis late—'tis time to be gone,
For Westminster Tom, by my faith, strikes one."
Hawkins, in his "History of Music," says,—"The practice of ringing bells in change, or regular peals, is said to be peculiar to England: whence Britain has been termed the ringing island. The custom seems to have commenced in the time of the Saxons, and was common before the Conquest. The ringing of bells, although a recreation chiefly of the lower sort, is, in itself, not incurious. The tolling of a bell is nothing more than the producing of a sound by a stroke of the clapper against the side of the bell, the bell itself being in a pendant position, and at rest. In ringing, the bell, by means of a wheel and a rope, is elevated to a perpendicular; in its motion, the clapper strikes forcibly on one side, and in its return downwards, on the other side of the bell, producing at each stroke a sound." There are still in London several societies of ringers. There was one called the College Youths (bell-ringers, like post-boys, never seem to acquire old age). Of this it is said Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, was, in his youthful days, a member; and in the life of that upright judge, by Burnet, some facts are mentioned which favour this relation. In England the practice of ringing has been reduced to a science, and peals have been composed which bear the names of their inventors; some of the most celebrated of these were composed about fifty years ago by one Patrick. This man was a maker of barometers. In the year 1684, one Abraham Rudhall, of the city of Gloucester, brought the art of bell-founding to great perfection. His descendants in succession have continued the business of casting bells; and by a list published by them at Lady Day, 1774, the family, in peals and odd bells, had cast to the amount of 3,594. The peals of St. Dunstan's in the East, St. Bride's, London, and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, are among the number. The following "Articles of Ringing" are upon the walls of the belfry in the pleasant village of Dunster, in Somersetshire. They are dated 1787:—