[Bell Historians] Earliest ring of bells on commercial ball races

[Alan J.Birney]

--- In bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com, "David Bryant" <david at b...> 
wrote:
> > In the West Cumbria, it has always been "said" that Hensingham 
St.
> > John (Taylors - 8 bells, 1914), one of the last rings of bells 
to be
> > hung before the Great War, was also the first ring of bells to be
> > entirely hung on ball races. Can anyone comment on this? They are
> > still on their original bearings to my knowledge, but where they 
the
> > first?
> 
> Possibly - I believe the earliest Taylor ball bearings were on the 
tenor at
> the bellfoundry campanile (1899). Other eary ones include the 
tenor at
> Lincoln (1913) and the tenor at St Chad, Shrewsbury (1914). I 
don't know of
> any complete rings earlier than 1914 with ball bearings. Taylor's 
didn't
> adopt them as standard until about 1920, and the other bellhanging 
firms
> adopted them at about the same time.
> 
> David
I had heard that the tenor of the former steel ring at Sowerby 
Bridge had been rehung by Mallabys on ball bearings in the early 
1900s.

Alan