[Bell Historians] COBH - and Gillett & Bland

[Chris Pickford]

As I started this one running, can I just thank all who contributed. We now have the answers at 56-3-22 and 40-1-11

Sympathies to those who missed RCO's little joke (not bad for him) about Gillett and Bland!

To change the subject, it's worth mentioning that the dates for Gillett & Bland suggested by Howard need some qualification. I did a bit of work a couple of years ago on the "signatures" used by the Croydon firm, as I had become aware that the official dates for versions of the company name (as in Elphick's Sussex) didn't quite correspond with the names found on their bells. I wanted to know which name to assign to bells found in the firm's records at different dates.

An initial listing – based on the firm’s title as given in inscriptions on some 260 bells – indicates that the following names were used:

  a.. Gillett and Bland, 1878-1881
  b.. Gillett, Bland & Co, 1878-1884
  c.. Gillett & Co, 1883-1892
  d.. Gillett & Johnston [1891 – uncertain] 1893-1950s
The key thing to note is that there is an overlap - so we can't be sure whether a bell dated 1880, for instance, would have been signed by Gillett & Bland or by Gillett, Bland & Co; or if one of 1883 would have had the name worded as Gillett, Bland & Co or Gillett & Co.

CP           
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