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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1475
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 07, 2004 - 5:39 pm: |       |
I post below a very long history of the Taylor clock and bell makers, but it is well worth the read, for we see that not only the Mears family enjoyed extended argument with Lord Grimthorpe - Dennison - but so did the Taylors, and not only that, just like the Cutbush's they too married into the Mears family (hopefully the family tree is readable)... errrr... the coincidental factor is not working anymore. There is something here.
Enjoy:
'JOHN WILLIAM TAYLOR (I)
(1827-1906)
John William Taylor, born at Buckland Brewer, was the eldest son of John Taylor. He soon became a bellringer, for on a board, dated 1842, in Loughborough Parish Church Belfry, there is recorded a peal of Grandsire Triples in which John W. Taylor rang the 3rd bell.
In 1852, at the age of 25, he married Eliza, daughter of Thomas Brayley, of Loughborough.
In 1856 we have records of his opinions connected with problems not only of bell founding, but also of bellhanging. We find him disagreeing with plans of the Hon. Edmund Beckett Denison, who was regarded as an eminent authority on bells, condemning them as "most bad in principle."
The question of the use of cast-iron for bellhanging is exercising his mind and in writing to a Mr. George Bloomfield, an engineer in Suffolk, he "can approve of it" for bellframes although at this time is not so sure about using it for headstocks as he "cannot recommend that batch of metal on the top of the bell." (We must remember that canons were the accepted way by which bells were fastened to their headstocks in those days.) Continuing, he advocates a centre hole "up through the middle of the argent for the clapper to be fastened to the stock," and does not resist a little tilt at other bellfounders when he ends his letter by saying,
" You will see that we do not go with the multitude in this matter . . . we give our advice to you and you must please yourself."
On the death of his father in 1858, he and his brother Pryce carried on the business, and their bells were mostly inscribed "John Taylor and Co., Loughborough," under which style it has continued ever since. In this year, too, he bought land in the Cherry Orchard district and began building his Bell Foundry in Freehold Street and Chapman Street.
In 1862 he is left alone as his brother Pryce dies at the early age of 27 and his eldest son is not yet old enough to help him. About this time he puts his thoughts to paper on a problem that disturbs him greatly and which in fact will not stop disturbing him for another 30 years, viz., WHY DO BELLS SOUND OUT OF TUNE?
He writes to the Hon. E. B. Denison (with whom he has settled his differences and in fact has called his newly born son Edmund Denison in his honour), "I have almost a dread of attempting to harmonize bells up to A ... but I flatter myself at being able to reach G satisfactorily". He has a vague idea about the complex tone of a bell and his letter continues, "I find there are transition notes in a long range of bells neither fit for one scale of notes or the other. They have always baffled me".
Notwithstanding the powerful influence of the Hon. E. B. Denison, he does not hesitate again to disagree with him, this time falling out with Denison's specifications for the great peal of bells which was being planned for Worcester Cathedral, for in writing to the Reverend R. Cattley he says, "I should dread the result at Worcester of such a peal to eclipse all others!" E. B. Denison got his own way and Taylor had to cast the bells to his specification. The resulting peal of bells fully justified John William Taylor's forebodings but it was left to his son, many years later, to remodel and recast the bells, resulting in the present noble ring.
About this time, in the actual process of moulding bells, he takes a great step forward by equipping himself "with a complete set of iron shells for bells up to four tons". By this is meant what we now call "bellcases". He moulded them in the Bell Foundry and had them cast at "a foundry with which I am connected".
A few years later he has his eldest son working for him.
JOHN WILLIAM TAYLOR (II)
(1853-1919)
John William II goes up to London at the age of 25 and receives the order for the largest peal of bells in the world, namely the ring of twelve bells for St. Paul's Cathedral, and three years later father and son complete their work there by casting and installing "Great Paul", the largest bell in the Empire, sounding a fifth below the tenor bell of the ring-truly a masterpiece of bell founding.
Along with these monster bells they were also busy casting and hanging bells for many of the Parish Churches of England.
By now their bells are being cast with flat heads, i.e., without canons, thus straightaway getting rid of the previous objection to the use of cast-iron headstocks and they soon find the great advantage of metal as opposed to wood, in that metal does not alter with the vagaries of our English climate!
They are also cogitating on metal bellframes and soon these appear, firstly just cast-iron struts and timber cills and then the all-metal frame.
Early in 1884. the aforementioned
EDMUND DENISON TAYLOR
(1864-1947)
is found working with his father and brother. He had been apprenticed to an iron founder in Leicester and is soon busy superintending the actual casting of bells and bellframes.
In this year, too, John William II marries Annie Mary, daughter of John Bardsley of Loughborough. Twenty years later he is left a widower, and marries in 1909 his second wife, Edith, youngest daughter of William Lea, of Manchester.
By the late eighties they had realized the importance of the "transition tones" that had so baffled John William I some twenty-five years before, and had now decided that a bell should sound no less than three octaves. But to know this was one thing, to do it another. Many were the bells they cast trying to do this and many were their disappointments.
They were, though, well on the way to the solution of the problem when, in 1894, they were visited by the Reverend A. B. Simpson and were astonished to hear from him that two Dutch bellfounders, some 250 years before, had solved the same problem but that their secret was now lost.
Mr. Simpson had been crusading for some years in an effort to get better bells and finding, at last, someone really interested in improving the tone of a bell, he became a constant visitor to Loughborough, ever urging the Taylors on and comforting them when they became despondent.
Eventually the practical and financial problems of producing the "true-harmonic" bell were solved and in 1896 the first peal of tuned bells ever made was installed in Norton Church Tower, near Sheffield.
In 1906 John William Taylor I dies, and the Bell Foundry is carried on by the two brothers, John William and Edmund Denison. Their fame and success increase as the years go by, and they enlarge their scope by turning their attention to the building of Carillons. This opened up great possibilities both in the Old World and the New, and Taylor Carillons are to be found spread over the world just as are Taylor Peals.
The third and fourth sons of John William II now enter the scene as they become old enough, namely
PRYCE TAYLOR
(1891-1927)
and
ARNOLD BRADLEY TAYLOR
(1894-1916)
In 1914 they both leave the Foundry to enlist, and Pryce alone survives the Great War.
He comes back to the Bell Foundry when hostilities are over to rejoin his uncle and, his father dying in 1919, the business is carried on by the two of them until in 1927 Pryce dies while on a business trip to Canada.
After the War and until her marriage in 1923, to George Frederick Mears,
GWENDOLINE TAYLOR
(1894-1942)
the third daughter of John William II assisted her brother and uncle in bell tuning and the forty-seven bell War Memorial Carillon in Loughborough bears witness to her work.
In 1935 the youngest son of John William II,
PAUL LEA TAYLOR
born 1914, starts his career as a bellfounder, under his uncle, and remains today to carry on the family tradition.
It is with the wish to do honour to his forebears that he has written these few notes about them and to show that from somewhat small beginnings, where the family of Taylor took control, the business has continued to develop to its pre-eminence today through the industry of five generations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------'
(sorry, the family tree got lost)
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3395
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 07, 2004 - 6:13 pm: | |
Interesting, AP. Obviously if a link could be found between the Taylors who married into the Cutbushes and these bell Taylors, such a link would be very suggestive (although the two Cutbush-Taylor marriages we know about took place a bit too early, in 1806 and 1836).
Robert |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1476
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 08, 2004 - 1:32 pm: | |
It is interesting, Robert, and I am actively seeking such a link between the Taylor/Cutbush families in question.
However as we have it is not bad, we know that all three families - the Mears, Cutbush and Taylors - were involved in the production of what are known as 'turret or tower' clocks, and that all three families had some form of contact with Lord Grimthorpe, in two cases of a highly hostile nature, and I do suspect also in the case of the letter Thomas Hayne Cutbush wrote to Lord Grimthorpe.
We now know that males from both the Cutbush and Taylor clans married into the Mears family... and of course the icing on the cake - as you point out - would be to wed a Cutbush to a Taylor in similar fashion.
But I am very positive that this wedding will take place, I just hope I'm not late!
Points of vital interest still to be explored are the direct proximity of the properties owned by the Cutbush family mentioned in the Cutbush wills you have found, namely 29 & 30 Whitechapel Road, to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry located at:
'Phelps died in 1738, and the order for this bell was completed by his foreman Thomas Lester, to whom he bequeathed his business and the lease of the foundry. Lester removed the business from Essex Street to the premises which it has continued to occupy until now at 32 and 34, Whitechapel Road.'
So Luke Flood Cutbush and the Mears sisters only had to lean over the fence to kiss one another.
And just around the corner on the other side of the foundry, young Tom-Tom's herediments, numbers 6 & 7 Fieldgate Street.
All much too neat for me I'm afraid. I smell Joe's old cod here. It starts to get really rank when you realise that the present head honcho of bells at the Whitechapel Foundry is this chap:
'From the latest Whitechapel Foundry News:
‘Back downstairs in the main tower bell tuning area, our head tuner, Nigel Taylor, held forth on the principles of bell tuning, including unequal temperament and the various systems he has been using to incorporate this in bells tuned at Whitechapel over the past year or so.’
That's why a Taylor married a Mears.
Now why did Luke Flood Cutbush do the same?
Puzzles within puzzles.
Not least the Taylor witness to the will.
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3400
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 08, 2004 - 2:30 pm: | |
It gets curiouser and curiouser, AP. Amazing, the vistas that keep on opening up. We go from Australasia to America, and then we're hopping around within an area a few square yards in size, and then back to Australia...
It's like a Magical Mystery Tour.
Robert |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1477
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 08, 2004 - 4:50 pm: | |
Magical Mystery tour is right, Robert.
I think these Victorians are teaching us that the world has been a big place for a lot longer than we think. The Mears, Taylors and Cutbush's had clocks and bells in Australia, Canada, America and New Zealand before Luke Flood Cutbush was born.
Their secret society - well not so secret today - is one of the oldest institutions we know:
'Change ringing was originally a gentleman's recreation. Its early participants, aristocrats and intelligentsia, often students, were later joined by ecclesiastics, labourers, and others. Women were excluded, and participation was a mark of social status. The first society, or ringing organization, the Ancient Society of College Youths, was founded in 1637'
This is the very Society highlighted earlier by a kind lady poster who had found Mears and Cutbush enrolled at the same time period.
And I have been investigating the Taylors and Deans that were members of this society.
Bad news is that these Taylor bell and clock makers are like rats.
We have:
'Robert Taylor of St Neots. 1796 and onward...'
and
'W & J Taylor of Oxford, Founder 1837'
Again both bell makers intimately involved with the Mears of Whitechapel.
Before anyone says anything, bell makers are as rare as hen's teeth.
Given all this, I just might jump ship - hopefully the Commodore - and get meself to Wellington to find a rich new bride and forget all this bell ringing nonsense.
The bells are giving me a headache. |
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