[Bell Historians] Harrisons again

[George Dawson]

charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

For the REAL truth about the Harrisons read Lincolnshire Bells & Bellfounde=
rs!
George Dawson
----- Original Message -----=20
From: ian johnson=20
To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com=20
Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 2:33 PM
Subject: [Bell Historians] Harrisons again


As a new member of this group I obviously have looked back through the ar=
chive to see if anything interesting has been written. My eyes fell on the=
messages about the Harrisons. Bearing in mind this is a site for those in=
terested in bell history, I would like to correct a few misconceptions and =
slurs. First of all the Harrison dynasty did not start and finish with Jame=
s 3.
James 1 of Barrow on Humber the bellhanger, brother of John of Chronomete=
r fame, mostly used Lester & Pack bells, However towards the end of his lif=
e he cast a number of bells, notably six for Hawkshead and in 1766 six for =
Masham, of these the fifth has been replaced at Hawkshead I believe by Tayl=
ors and the treble at Masham.
He was followed by James 2 who did not follow the business and Henry who =
probably cast the bells attributed to his father. Henry cast a five at Wath=
augmented by Shaws in 1901 of these I think two remain the others been rec=
ast by Warners.
We then come to James 3 of Barton who did a lot to destroy the reputation=
of the Harrisons. His most notable casting being "The Major" at Newcastle =
and the "interesting" ring at Castleton, he advocated the squat profile to =
give a deeper note for less metal. He was a talented clockmaker he together=
with James 4 invented an improved detached escapement and an expanding fly=
which both received medals from "The Society for the promotion of Arts" T=
he improved detached escapement was the first true gravity escapement.=20
Lastly the Harrisons did not cast all their bells to the squat profile ad=
vocated by James 3 The bells here at Masham are of conventional profile sim=
ilar to a Lester & Pack and do NOT sound "Awfull" remember listen to the be=
lls not people you meet in pubs. They are a fine mellow old style ring. So =
David if you want to be taken seriously as a bell historian remember facts =
are more important than hearsay and fiction.
Yours Ian Johnson

This message was sent to you via the Bell Historians' Mailing List. To un=
subscribe from the list send an email to bellhistorians-unsubscribe at yahoogr=
oups.com



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.=20

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ringingworld.co.uk/pipermail/bell-historians/attachments/20020825/11a3ef24/attachment.html>