[Bell Historians] Learned Journal

[David Bryant]

George Dawson wrote:

> I see in todays RW (29.11.02 p 1203) in the report of the Library
Committee that a technical journal is proposed.
> Below is part of a letter I am sending to Bill Butler on this matter. I
would be interested to hear the views of others.

I remember reading this in a previous report on the library committee and
putting a message on this list, to which I got no response. Are any members
of the library committee members of the list? I had an enquiry from John
Eisel a few weeks ago about joining, and although I supplied details he
hasn't yet joined.

Personally, I DO think that a journal would be a good idea. Historical
articles in the RW are inevitably limited in number and length as the
journal has to encompass all of the diverse aspects of ringing. Also, most
writers of historical articles (myself included) tend to make RW articles
readable for those with only a passing interest in bell history. If there
was a specialist journal, there would be no problem with using jargon.

I'm not a subscriber to the RW so I haven't yet seen this week's (I'll have
a look at the tower copy on Sunday). Does it say how often it is proposed to
publish the journal? Obviously, weekly would not be sustainable, but perhaps
quarterly, half-yearly or annually would. By way of comparison, the Society
for Church Archaeology publishes its journal annually.

I think it is worth considering the extent to which bells have been looked
at in the context of church history and archaeologically generally. Most of
the fittings of churches have been looked at by either art historians,
archaeologists or both, but bells have benn largely ignored (and are not
well understood) by either. The only real exception to this is bellframes,
which can be looked at using the approaches to timber framing more
generally. The journal of Church Archaeology has had at least one short
article on the bells of a particular church (in Norfolk I think - I don't
have a copy to hand), and this has ignored (and its author was probably
unaware of) the conventions generally used in recording bells, and has tried
to devise his own method of description, which includes drawing the
inscriptions and using the drawing conventions used in archaeological
pottery drawing to illustrate the bells. The general texts on church
archaeology give bells at most a passing mention. Perhaps an article for the
journal of Church Archaeology would be a good idea. I will look into this.

I think that the historical and archaeological study of bells generally
tends to be rather insular; that was one of the reasons why I set up this
list, and I think that dialogue between those who study bells and those who
study churches and their fittings would be helpful to both sides. A journal
dedicated to bell history would be a step in the right direction.
Incidentally, has anyone on this list been 'canvassed' about this project?
It seems to me that it would be foolhardy to attempt it without the backing
of the leading members of the bell historian community.

David