The sound of church bells ringing out in peal is quintessentially English, although English-style ringing can be heard across the British Isles and in former colonies such as the USA and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. At Castle Bromwich the bells are rung every Sunday morning as they have been for hundreds of years. And the ringers have recently set up a project to restore the bells in time for the tercentenary of Sir John Bridgeman II’s new ring of 5 of 1717.

The Earliest Bells

Not all churches can boast a peal of bells. In the Diocese of Birmingham bells are to be found in the towers of ancient churches such as Yardley, Kings Norton and Northfield, while there are bells in some Victorian churches: Boldmere, Selly Oak and Erdington, for instance. The city’s newest bell tower is at the Georgian church of St Paul’s in the Jewellery Quarter where a ring of 10 was installed in 2005.

Of the 188 churches in Birmingham Diocese, 47 have bells. This is a high proportion and Birmingham has a good reputation as a bellringing city.

(Find out more at the website of the St Martin’s Guild of Church Bell Ringers – http://www.stmartinsguild.org/towers/.)

Bells have been used by Christians from about 400 AD when St Paulinus initiated their use to notify local people that a church service was about to start. The first bells were handbells. As the use of bells began to spread throughout Christendom, churches vied with their neighbours to have the largest bell. As bells grew larger, they were hung outside the building and eventually placed in bellcotes.

The first bell in England may have been at Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire which is known to have had one in 680 AD. St Dunstan (c909 – 988) is the patron saint of bellringers. As a young monk he trained as a metal worker later turning his hand to making bells and when he became Archbishop of Canterbury he had bells hung in all the churches in his diocese.

Castle Bromwich church dates from the 11th century. Covering the area of the present chancel, some of the Norman stonework of the old chapel is still hidden behind the wooden panelling near the altar.

It cannot be known for certain, but there is every likelihood that a single bell hung in a small turret at the east end of the church.

Medieval Bells at Castle Bromwich

The small Norman chapel served Castle Bromwich for some 300 years before the church was enlarged in about 1450 with the addition of a large timber-framed nave at the west end of the original chapel.

It is not certain how many bells were hung there, but evidence in the roof at the west end survives showing the location of the medieval belfry. Certainly in 1716 there were three bells there.

Until the 17th century bells were hung on a simple lever and just swung from side to side. If there was more than a single bell, it was almost impossible to control them to ring in any sort of a pattern. This is the style of ringing still heard in continental Europe where church bells are simply rung ad lib.

However, during the 17th century bellringers began to experiment with different ways of hanging bells to give them greater control. Eventually bells were fixed to a wheel enabling ringers to rotate them through 360 degrees. They could now speed up or slow down, start and stop ringing at will; patterns of ringing began to be developed. The system of hanging and ringing bells that evolved at that time is still in use today.

New Bells

Another 300 years passed, until in 1717 Sir John Bridgeman II of Castle Bromwich Hall had the three old bells melted and recast to make a ring of five. The cost was £12 16s. 0d. The bell-founder was Joseph Smith of Edgbaston who was also responsible for other local bells; one of his 18th-century bells is still rung at Sheldon church. It is thought that a new tower must have been built at the west end of the church to house the bells, though no evidence of it now survives.

Sir John had his name inscribed on the largest bell; the second largest bore the name of John Brooke, the priest from Aston in charge of Castle Bromwich; other bells had written on them the names of wealthy local landowners, family names found in Castle Bromwich over many years: Chattock, Sadler, Thornton.

Bad Behaviour

During the 18th century bellringing became a fashionable pursuit for wealthy young gentlemen and was largely unrelated to the religious worship of the time. To make ringing more interesting a range of patterns of ringing were devised, known as methods, some of them very complicated. Priests generally did not approve of this, as they considered it a leisure activity and unsuitable for a Sunday. Church services were usually announced by the tolling of a single bell.

In country areas, the situation was worse. Historically, the chancel of the church with the altar was the responsibility of the parish priest; the nave where the congregation stood or sat belonged to the people of the parish. It doubled up as a community hall. The bell tower was seen as the people’s part of the church. It was fairly normal for a barrel of beer to be kept in the bell ringing chamber and for the ringers to smoke and gamble. Some vicars locked the ringers out only to have the door broken open on practice nights. What the behaviour was like at Castle Bromwich is anyone’s guess.

A New Church and Plans for a Sixth Bell

Many churches in the 18th century began to increase the number of bells to enable them to ring the increasing number of methods being devised. Again there was a certain rivalry between local parishes as to which church tower could boast the greater number of bells.

In 1725 Sir John Bridgeman had a new bell tower built, the tower that stands there today. The bells of 1717 were hung in the new tower. Sir John allowed space for a sixth bell which was not put in place at the time. A new bell may have been low on his list of priorities, at this time he was rebuilding Castle Bromwich Hall on a grander scale and also planned to rebuild the old timber church, both very costly enterprises.

Spring Clean

During the first half of the 19th century there were moves to reform and revitalise the Church of England and return it to its catholic roots, a process largely promoted by the Cambridge Camden Society. From 1839 the Society began to encourage a national ‘spring clean’ of churches to return them to a perceived golden age set somewhere in the Middle Ages. This included bell towers and the bellringers. Bellringing should not be seen as an activity separate from the church, but should serve the religious needs of the church. Incumbents were encouraged to take control of the belltower.

The parish priest should appoint a captain of bellringers to be responsible for the band and its conduct. The captain was empowered to fine members of his team for poor attendance, inappropriate behaviour and even for poor ringing. By the end of the century, a new generation of ringers had transformed bellringing and made it a respectable part of church life. Although it continued as an enjoyable hobby, its main focus was on serving the religious life of the church.

In 1896 Taylor’s bell foundry in Loughborough perfected the scientific tuning of bells. Different parts of a bell resonate at different frequencies and the trick is to tune them so that they make a musical chord. Up until this discovery the various bell founders tended to stick to their preferred shapes and would improve the sound of the bell by chipping small pieces of metal from a circle at different places inside the bell. In recent years the quality of Joseph Smith’s surviving bells has been analysed and they have been found to be very musically accurate castings.

Other founders followed Taylor’s lead and during the 19th century increasing numbers of towers had their bells recast to improve the sound quality of their peals. Greater attention was paid to the way that bells were hung and bells began to be easier to handle. This in turn encouraged more ringers, more ringing and more complex methods being rung.

Birmingham, being a famous bellringing city, saw many towers having their bells recast at this time, many of them by Taylor’s.

A Sixth Bell Is Cast

The Bridgemans, Lords Bradford had not lived at Castle Bromwich since the mid-18th century when they moved to Weston Park. Castle Bromwich Hall had been let to wealthy tenants in the meantime. However, in 1870 George Bridgeman (Viscount Newport), the eldest son of the 3rd Earl of Bradford, moved back to Castle Bromwich with his new wife, Lady Ida née Lumley, the daughter of Lord Scarborough. They both lived here until their deaths respectively in 1915 and1936.

Lady Ida was a close friend of Princess Mary of Teck who married the Duke of York, the future King George V. Lord Bradford had a new 6th bell made to celebrate their wedding in 1893. The bell founder was Charles Carr of Smethwick. Unfortunately the old frame could not take the new bell and Carr constructed a new oak frame, which is still in place. The third bell was now no longer in tune with the new ring and a new bell was cast to take its place.

Fortunately Carr was able to sell Joseph Smith old No.3 bell to the railway works at Derby (now Derby College) as a clock bell where it is still hangs chiming the hours. Luckily, the railway line through Castle Bromwich goes directly to Derby and, in all likelihood, the bell travelled this route.

World War 2

With the outbreak of war in 1939, all church bells were silenced. They were to be rung only in the event of a German invasion. Traditionally bells are rung in reverse in times of national danger. Fortunately, this never happened. However, when Victory in Europe was declared on 8 May 1945, few church bells were rung in celebration. With the bells remaining silent for six years and many bellringers away at war, there were very few people left who knew how to ring them.

Castle Bromwich Bells Recast in 1952

In 1952 Castle Bromwich’s old bells were melted down and recast to make a new ring of six. A fund had been started by Lucy Williams in memory of her bellringing husband John who died at the age of 54. Born in 1872, he was the local blacksmith who lived and worked on Castle Bromwich Green next to the Coach & Horses Inn. He was from a family of Castle Bromwich blacksmiths dating back to the 18th century.

Bell founders, Gillett & Johnston of Croydon cast a new ring from the metal of the old, and the new bells were first officially rung on 22 November 1952. Lucy lived 23 years longer than her husband, dying at the age of 78 in 1949, so she was never to hear the bells cast in his memory. Lucy and John Williams are buried together in Castle Bromwich graveyard.

A New Millennium

In the year 2000, grants from the National Lottery helped to restore 150 bell towers across the UK. 5000 new bellringers learned the craft in order to ring on New Year’s Day 2000 when almost every tower rang out the old and rang in the new. Castle Bromwich was there with the rest!

Bell Restoration Project

The Castle Bromwich bellringers have now set up a trust raising funds to restore, improve and maintain the church bells. The aim is to get the work done by 2017 to celebrate the tercentenary of Sir John Bridgeman’s new bells of 1717.

The Gillett & Johnson bells of 1952 are a fine ring. However, the bell frame installed by Charles Carr in 1893 and the fittings of 1952 are unsatisfactory. The ringers want to restore the installation to good order and to hang two new bells to complete the ring of eight intended 60 years ago.

The Earl of Bradford and The Viscount Hereford are patrons of the project. The former is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Sir John Bridgeman II and Viscount Hereford is the descendant of Sir Walter Devereux who built the medieval wooden church.

You can hear the bells of Castle Bromwich rung in the English tradition and style every Sunday, on holy days, high days and for weddings and funerals. The bells have been rung for the funerals of Princess Diana and the Queen Mother, for the Queen’s Jubilees, for the Millennium, for the London Olympic Games and in commemoration of the First World War centenary.

For more, see the Castle Bromwich ringers’ website – http://cbbells.webs.com/

At the close of the 19th century the Smallwood family were the oldest wine merchants in Birmingham having traded for at least six generations. Specialising in fine and expensive wines, their premises in Lower Priory off Old Square dated back to the mid-17th century. Beneath the grand old house ‘their subterranean premises were honeycombed with catacombs containing grand old spirits and big bins of choice vintage and wines.’

Moving from Handsworth, the family had a large house built about 1850 in Castle Bromwich just beyond the Fox & Goose which they named Stechford Hall. (The building was demolished before 1950 and the site later made into Stechford Hall Park).

Chooses Acting rather than the Family Business

Ernest, born in 1859, was the youngest of the family. His elder brother had followed his father and grandfather into the wine trade, his uncle and cousins who lived at Southfields (now The Remembrance Club) were in law and accountancy.

But Ernest became an actor with the stage name Ernest Wood and had some success. Aged 37, he had lodgings in Kilburn Square, Brondesbury, a decent enough district and less than half an hour by omnibus to central London.

Falls From An Omnibus

Three days before Christmas 1897 Smallwood boarded an omnibus in Oxford Street headed for his lodgings. He was not currently employed, although three weeks previously he had ended a run at the Princess’s Theatre in Oxford Street playing in Sutton Vane’s melodrama, ‘In Sight of St Paul’s’.

He climbed up beside the driver; fares were half-price on the open top and the weather was not particularly cold for the time of year.

Soon Smallwood began to feel faint and decided that he would get off the bus and take a cab the rest of the journey home. What caused him to fall is not known, but fall he did. He brushed against the driver and fell off the bus down to the road below.

 

Rushed to The Middlesex

The driver called the police and the unconscious Smallwood was taken to the Middlesex Hospital just half a mile away.

On regaining consciousness the following day, Ernest Smallwood found that he was paralysed from the waist down. His spine had been damaged in the fall from the top deck of the omnibus. His brother Joseph, the wine merchant was at his bedside having travelled down to London by train as soon as he was told of the accident.

The Inquest’s Verdict

Two days after Christmas Ernest Smallwood died. The inquest was held at Marylebone Coroner’s Court under Dr Danford Thomas. Death was the result of Ernest‘s fall from the bus, but what had caused the fall in the first place was never discovered. A verdict of ‘Accidental Death’ was returned.

Ernest’s body was brought back home and laid to rest in the family vault in Castle Bromwich graveyard.

 

Acknowledgements: This article has been developed from research by Terrie Knibb and the Castle Bromwich Youth & Community Partnership. For more information about the Castle Bromwich Graveyard Project go to http://castlebromwichgraveyard.co.uk/

John Joseph Bateman was the son of the noted Castle Bromwich architect John Jones Bateman. The Batemans were a wealthy family who lived in a very large house known as Hawkesford House on the Chester Road near Castle Bromwich Hall (A block of flats with the same name now stands on the site). The 1861 Census records him living there with his parents and five sisters; his one-year-old brother had died that same year and his youngest brother Charles Edward, who also became a noted architect, had not yet been born. The family lived very comfortably, having three servants and a governess living in.

John Joseph became a valuer and auctioneer working in Birmingham. On a personal level he was interested in religion and politics and was very active in the 1886 General Election campaign which resulted in a landslide victory for the Conservatives under William Gladstone and their allies, the Liberal Unionists led by Joseph Chamberlain.

Bateman suffered from depression after the election. It may be that he was a supporter of the Liberals which party suffered an acrimonious split over the Irish Question. His doctor recommended that he should go travelling to take his mind off home affairs and this he agreed to do.

Sketching Holiday

John Joseph hired one Charles Boston as a companion and attendant and set off on a sketching holiday. Like his younger architect brother, he was interested in the Middle Ages and wanted to visit historic sites and draw ancient ruins .In February 1886 the two of them went to Kenilworth presumably to make pictures of the castle there and then they made their way to Battle in Sussex, famous for the ruined abbey built on the site of the Battle of Hastings.

The pair stayed in lodgings on Whatlington Road at Battle for about a month and spent their days together sketching and their evenings discussing religion and politics over a glass of milk and soda, a popular drink at the time rather like a milkshake; Bateman was a teetotaller. The two got on well and Bateman seemed relaxed and cheerful

On 27 April 1886, the Tuesday after Easter, John Joseph and Charles went for a long walk in the afternoon. When they got back to their lodging, John complained of a severe headache and retired to his room. When he did not come down for the evening meal, Charles went up and found him missing. He immediately went in search of him and headed in the direction the two of them walked earlier in the day. Failing to find him, Charles Boston reported the matter to the stationmaster and to the police who came with him to help in the search. But to no avail.

A Body Is Found

However, at sunrise the next morning a body was discovered alongside the railway line by James Wilmhurst, a platelayer making his morning inspection of the track. A doctor was called and the stationmaster and the police were informed.

The deceased was identified as John Joseph Bateman.

The inquest was called that very Thursday and John Joseph’s younger brother Charles came down to Battle immediately. The hearing took place at the Railway Hotel at Battle with the Hastings coroner, Charles Sheppard presiding. .

Railwayman James Wilmhurst described how he had found the body lying face down, fully clothed but, strangely, not wearing boots. Odd too was the fact that the place where the deceased lay was not near any footpath, so John Joseph must have walked along the railway line for some distance.

The stationmaster, William Breach testified that, with the discovery of the body, he had gone to straight to Hastings to examine the locomotive that had last passed along the track. He found that the connection bar at the front of the engine bore traces of blood and hair.

The doctor who had been called to the scene described the position of the body. Footmarks between the rails, the position in which the body lay and the stance of the arms suggested that Bateman had been hit by the train while running down the track between the lines. The top of the deceased’s head had been sheered off by the impact and lay a metre away from the rest of his head, his brains spilt on the ground. He must have been killed in an instant.

The Inquest’s Verdict

Following a lengthy summing up by the Coroner, the jury returned a verdict of Accidental Death, the chairman declaring that in the opinion of all the jurors, no blame could be attached to Charles Boston.

John Joseph Bateman’s body was brought back to Castle Bromwich where he was buried in the family grave near the cemetery gate. He was laid to rest beside a brother and sister and his mother who had died when he was just 14. His father, John Jones would live to the ripe old age of 85, dying in 1903 and his younger brother Charles died in 1947 in his 85th year.

Acknowledgements: This article has been developed from research by Terrie Knibb and the Castle Bromwich Youth & Community Partnership. For more information about the Castle Bromwich Graveyard Project go to http://castlebromwichgraveyard.co.uk/. 

It was a cold wet Monday in early October when 21-year-old medical student Douglas Ward rode from his home at Shaw Hill in Upper Saltley to team up with his old friend Richard Turner Chattock. The two had arranged for a day’s hunting. In 1858 both Shaw Hill and Castle Bromwich were areas of Warwickshire countryside where well-to-do young gentlemen found sport shooting the abundant wildlife of the woods and fields.

Richard Chattock was descended of an old Castle Bromwich family but now lived with his parents in Kentish Town, London where his father Edward Turner Chattock was a merchant in iron and tinplate. The two had come up to Castle Bromwich on a visit to Edward’s uncle Thomas Chattock who lived at Hay Hall.

With farmer’s son, John Powell and another friend, they set out to hunt rabbits.

The weather was cold, damp and miserable and at the end of the day the four huntsmen had managed to bag only a single rabbit and decided to make their way home.

Douglas Ward led the way back home. Richard Chattock followed on behind wiping his double-barrelled flintlock shotgun with his handkerchief. As he put the handkerchief back in his pocket, the gun went off, the shot hitting Ward square in the middle of his back. The medical student fell to the ground senseless. In panic Chattock dropped his gun, then picked it up and threw it over the roadside hedge.

The two other companions ran up to help their friend but so great was his pain that he could not bear to be touched. A farm gate served as a make-shift stretcher and they gently carried the injured man to the Bradford Arms nearby. During the whole episode no-one had spoken a word.

Surgeon Henry Bailey of Coleshill was sent for. He arrived to find Douglas Ward lying on his face in great pain: “I am dying, Bailey. Good bye.” Ward blamed no one for the accident and shook hands with Chattock. The latter asked for forgiveness which was freely given. Several hours after the incident ward expired in the presence of his friends.

The inquest was held at the Bradford Arms under the chairmanship of the district coroner, Mr W S Poole, with well-respected local schoolmaster John Blewitt as foreman of the jury.

Evidence was given by John Powell, by Thomas and Edward Chattock, by Mr Bailey and by Richard Turner Chattock himself. He was so overcome with emotion he could barely be heard. He expressed his very deep regret at having been the cause of his friend’s death.

Coroner Poole said he would not add to Richard Chattock’s distress by making the inquiry longer than necessary and recommended to the jury that a verdict of Accidental Death would be appropriate. He expressed the view that in this case the innocent cause of the fatal accident was as much to be pitied as the victim.

 

Douglas’s grave can be seen in Castle Bromwich graveyard opposite the church of St Mary & St Margaret where his funeral service was conducted by the priest in charge,   Rev Edwin Kempson. The grave lies not far from the main gate on the right hand side.

 

Notes:
Douglas Ward lived at Shaw Hill House in Upper Saltley which still stands. Built in the mid-18th century, it still lay in countryside far from the industrial town of Birmingham one hundred years later when Douglas met his sad end. The Ward family, after whom the district of Ward End is named, had lived in the area since the Middle Ages.

Likewise, the family of Richard Chattock who could also trace his ancestry back in this area to medieval times when an ancestor built a house within a moat near the River Tame at Bromford.

Acknowledgements: This article has been developed from research by Terrie Knibb and the Castle Bromwich Youth & Community Partnership. For more information about the Castle Bromwich Graveyard Project go to http://castlebromwichgraveyard.co.uk/.

Images
A Birmingham flintlock gun of the kind that would have been used by Richard Chattock, manufactured probably by or for Matthew Boulton c.1791. Image copyright of Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery on Flickr and reusable under a non-commercial sharealike Creative Commons licence.

Hunting for rabbits from ‘Confessions of a Poacher’ 1890 by an anonymous author.

The Ward family tomb in Castle Bromwich graveyard. Image by William Dargue, reusable under a non-commercial sharealike Creative Commons licence.

A brass plaque at the back of Castle Bromwich church records that in 1952 the six bells were recast, thanks to a legacy from Lucy Williams (1871-1949) in memory of her husband John (1872-1926).

John Williams, usually known as Jack, was the Castle Bromwich village blacksmith, a churchwarden and a long-time bellringer at Castle Bromwich church, he is buried in the church graveyard.

John’s father was also John Williams, born in 1837, the son of James Williams; all were local blacksmiths. James’s father, another John Williams was also a blacksmith with his forge on the Chester Road where Cedar Avenue now runs.

And the churchwardens’ accounts show that yet another John Williams was paid in 1785 for re-hanging the bells. He would almost certainly be an ancestor of John and he too was also the village blacksmith at the time. It is recorded that he was paid £5: 16 shillings: 5 pence for the job. This was a large amount of money in 1785 worth perhaps £10,000s worth of labour at today’s values. But lowering the bells, presumably mending the frame and rehanging the bells was a substantial piece of work.

Lucy née Baumber was born in the tiny village of Digby in Lincolnshire some 12 miles south of the county town. How she came to meet John Williams from Castle Bromwich is not known, but the couple were married in 1899 probably at St Thomas’ Church, Digby. The marriage is recorded in Sleaford Registration District which includes Digby.

They came to live on Castle Bromwich Green, the little 18th-century house to the right of the Coach & Horses, which at that time was a small local pub, not the large building that stands there today. John was set up with his father as a blacksmith with his younger brother Arthur as an apprentice. Arthur was known locally as Clogman on account of the boots he wore. The sign on the house advertised the business as a blacksmiths and coach builders, John Williams & Sons. John specialised in shoeing horses while his brother’s forte was making wagon wheels.

As the business grew, it was decided that Arthur should remain in the old house with his wheelwright’s business while John would set up a new forge on the other side of the Green. By this time motor cars were becoming a more common sight and John began to undertake repairs on them.

This was in 1923 and there were now plans to build a new road, the Bradford Road. The traffic along the Chester Road through the old village was increasingly becoming a problem. John’s workshop was so close to the route of the new road, that he changed its name from the Forge to the Forge Garage and hoped his business would benefit from the motor cars which would be soon passing close by.

Unfortunately he did not live long enough to see the Bradford Road built, dying at the age of 54 on 26 October 1926.

After his death, Lucy took over running the Forge Garage and the blacksmith’s business, but it must have proved too much for her. Trade directories of 1927 do not record the business.

Lucy lived for another 23 years after her husband’s death and died on 29 December 1949 at the age of 78. She was buried with him in Castle Bromwich graveyard.

In memory of John’s many years as a bellringer, Lucy Williams left a bequest in her will for the church bells to be recast. The ring of six derived from an installation of 1717 paid for by Sir John Bridgeman II of Castle Bromwich Hall. These had been recast from an earlier medieval ring at the church. In 1893 to commemorate the wedding of the Duke of York, the future King George V with Princess Mary of Teck, Charles Carr of Smethwick was commissioned to cast a sixth bell.

However, it was found that the third bell was now out of tune with the new peal. Carr therefore cast a new third. It is not known how the new peal of six sounded. However, it may be that John Williams was never happy with the new bells for his wife to have left such a large sum of money in his memory to have them recast.

The 1717 bells were cast by Joseph Smith of Edgbaston long before the days of scientific tuning. However, studies of Smith’s remaining bells have been undertaken which show the remarkable skill of his casting and the accuracy of the harmonics of his bells. The old Castle Bromwich third bell, which is now in the Roundhouse at Derby College, is testament to this. By Charles Carr’s time, scientific tuning had been discovered and pretty much perfected by some bell founders, though Carr’s success in this field was less secure. It may be that Carr’s bells did not sound good or that they did not fit in with Smith’s earlier bells.

In 1952 the six bells were taken down by Gillett & Johnston, renowned bell founders of Croydon. A new fine-sounding ring was cast using the old metal, some of which dated from the Middle Ages.

The new bells were first officially rung on 22 November 1952 nearly three years after Lucy’s death and 26 years after the death of her husband.

To commemorate the Diamond Anniversary of the bells, St Mary & St Margaret’s bellringers planted bulbs on the grave of the couple; the bulbs which were kindly donated by Hall’s Garden Centre were, appropriately, bluebells. Robert Hall was pleased to contribute to this event. His family’s business was founded in Castle Bromwich also in 1952 and his parents too are buried in the graveyard. The bells were then rung in memory of the Williams couple.