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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-GB link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Nothing completely definite (makers etc), but there were three bells and the date is 1870. These are the press reports I’ve found<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>Free Library, Bebington, Cheshire. In the autumn of 1865 our townsman Joseph Mayer, F.S.A., formed a library in that village, where he has a country residence, and on the 1st of January, 1866, he opened it free to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. … The new library is in a more accessible situation in the centre of the village, and is a large room 29 feet long by 21 feet wide, on the basement floor of which is a staircase leading to a gallery running round the sides of the building, with an open space in the centre, so as to form one room with a high pitched roof, … Above the entrance to the library, the lower part forming the porch, has been erected a tower with a high pitched roof with louvres, in which is a clock with three bells of a large size that strike the hours and quarters so as to be heard throughout the village, the hour-bell weighing two hundred pounds, and the other two of proportionate size, on which the hours and quarters will strike in harmonious chime. … (<i>Liverpool Mercury</i>, 14 January 1870)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Report of Dinner for Captain Mayer, “A Benefactor to Bebington”, mentions that the clock was “put in motion for the first time” on Wednesday and “will be useful and convenient to the residents. It is a superior specimen of horology, alike in mechanism and outward appearance, and chimes the quarter hours, us well strikes the hours” (<i>Liverpool Courier and Commercial Advertiser</i>, Friday 25 February 1870)<span style='mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>I’ve posted the key details to Facebook too<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='color:#1F3864'>Chris Pickford</span></i></b><span style='color:#1F3864'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#2F5496'>e-mail: </span><a href="mailto:pickford5040@gmail.com">pickford5040@gmail.com</a> <o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>