Elphick on Whitechapel

[Bill Hibbert <bill@h...>]

In 'The Craft of the Bellfounder' (p. 103) while describing the 
introduction of true-harmonic tuning, Elphick writes:

'Whitechapel remained aloof, working out in the early 1900s their own 
system of five-tone tuning with a muted third, which was obtained by 
so casting a bell that the third partial had hardly to be touched in 
the tuning machine . . . the third is deliberately muted to enable 
the strike note to be clearer.'

I have long puzzled over this sentence, it does not seem to describe 
any Whitechapel bells of the period I have looked at. Can anyone shed 
any light on it?

Bill H