“From grave to gay, from lively to severe”: Hand Bell Ringer groups in Calderdale

When you think of Victorian era entertainment, your mind might not leap immediately to bells. Church bells, you ask? No, this isn’t about the joy and satisfaction to be found in campanology – today we are talking about littler bells. Hand bells. “Hand Bell Ringers”, to be precise.

Hand bell ringing incorporates dozens of bells, small to large, and a number of skilled and dedicated (and coordinated!) participants. As complex a team sport as anything involving balls or nets or sticks, hand bell ringing was taken so seriously that there were regional competitions and events held to determine who the champion ringers might be in any given area or year. Not all bell ringers were competitive though – some were commercial interests. This blog post is going to look at two Calderdale groups, the Clifton Hand Bell Ringers and the Todmorden Hand Bell Ringers, and their various exploits. Trust us…it really is interesting.

The Todmorden Hand Bell Ringers were formed in 1877 and were a commercial group who did not take part in the regional competitions mentioned previously, and instead would play at civic events or in music halls and other entertainment venues. They were an ambitious group, even undertaking not one but TWO tours of the United States!

Cover of a promotional leaflet printed sometime between 1890-1892, reproduced here courtesy of Susan Dennett

Their first tour of the US in 1889 was something less than a complete success; the historical record is somewhat silent on this, with only some veiled allusions to there being “some complications” during the tour. Local gossip, however, was that the man acting as their agent in the US didn’t put the work in to secure them venues and they were having to work hard to get shows put on in order to make enough money to see the tour through and cover all the venues which HAD been booked prior to the trip. The biggest venue was inarguably the Boston Maritime Exhibition, and their performance there must have felt like a truly unbeatable experience. The 1892 tour seems to have been a little more successful. Certainly they had the reviews to prove it, and promotional material produced late in the 1890s/early 1900s includes many blurbs from American newspapers singing their praises.

Todmorden Advertiser & Hebden Bridge Newsletter, 22nd Nov 1889

The Tod Ringers continued into the 20th century but disbanded quietly at some point during the first decade, perhaps because some members left and could not be replaced, or perhaps because they were a casualty of radio, phonographs, or more modern forms of musical entertainment. The former seems more likely, since there are mentions of the Heptonstall Handbell Ringers and Almondbury Handbell Ringers performing at various events in Todmorden up until the beginning of WWI. A number of items referring to them remain in the local history collection at Todmorden Library as well as in the Todmorden Antiquarian Society’s collection of items housed there, including some large illustrated prints showing the members during their heyday, one of which is framed and hanging on the wall in the main library.

Illustrated print of the lads, in situ at Todmorden Library

The Todmorden group, with its small size and international stage presence, stands in contrast to the other group mentioned here: the Clifton Handbell Ringers, who are still going strong and who, while less “glamorous”, may very well owe their continued existence to their initial scale.

The Clifton ringers were formed earlier than the Todmorden ringers, in the 1850s. Clifton’s group were part of the wider national collective of competitive hand bell ringers mentioned previously; these groups competed in regional and national competitions and used the prize money to improve their equipment and raise their profiles. Like Todmorden, Clifton had some of its roots in parish church bell ringers, and played at local events to promote themselves so that they could fundraise via public subscription. Not content with merely being a group of like-minded adults with a penchant for bells, Clifton’s ringers expanded outwards into a variety of spheres. A Junior Ringers group was formed in 1906, and they even had…prepare yourself…their own football club.

Brighouse News, 2nd September 1910

The groups were indeed popular locally – public subscription allowed enough bells to be purchased to form two adult teams, and eventually over 200 bells were owned by the Clifton ringers, allowing them to mark themselves out as serious competitors. Having so many bells and so many group members was an investment in the future of bell ringing, since regional competitions were rewarded not just by a newspaper writeup or a rosette, but also by significant cash prizes. Not being a purely commercial venture did not mean the Clifton ringers were simply doing it for the love of bells or love of competition!

“Clifton Hand Bell Ringers: notes on their history”, a small piece put together in 1985 by one of Brighouse Library’s branch librarians, J.A. Gallagher, goes into detail about one of the competitions the adult ringers routinely entered, the Yorkshire Association contest.

“The Belle Vue contest was held on Honley Feast Monday and for many years Clifton entered one, sometimes two teams. Though they came second (once) and third (twice), the first prize eluded them. Their positions in the years 1894 -1902 (the only years for which records are available) were: 1894, 5th; 1895, nil; 1896, 3rd; 1897, 4th; 1898, 5th; 1899, nil; 1900, 4th; 1901, 2nd; 1902, 3rd. One year they were unplaced because their bells were found to be out of tune. This set was sold eventually to Blakeborough’s in 1914 for war scrap.”

This year is likely to be 1907, as the Brighouse News ran a small piece bemoaning their poor performance in a competition in Manchester. The judge’s remarks more or less state that while their execution was excellent, the bells themselves were substandard.

Brighouse News, 10th April 1907

The First World War put paid to the ringers, with 1915 being the final year of any serious organised activity by any of the groups. They officially disbanded in February of that year. However, unlike Todmorden, this was not to be the end of the hand bell ringers in Clifton. Thanks to Clifton Parish Council, 146 of the new set of 200 bells which had been purchased to replace the out-of-tune ones were kept hold of, and in March 1976 a new Clifton Hand Bell Ringers group was formed. Through public events they were able to raise the money to restore this set of bells to full working order and to the present day the group (now a registered charity) is available to perform at any event you wish to book them for.

If you want to know more about either of these groups, the aforementioned short piece about the Clifton group is held at Brighouse Library. Todmorden Library has a small number of items related to the Todmorden group as part of the Todmorden Antiquarian Society collection stored on site. Many mentions of both groups can be found in local newspapers, which you can access on microfilm at either location or at Halifax Local Studies Library, or online in your nearest branch via our subscription to the British Newspaper Archive. If you had family connected to either group, get in touch – we’d love to know more about both groups and their membership.