Half-pull Ringing

[Edward W Martin]

--- In bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Aspland" 
<aaspland at ...> wrote:
>
> Looking through the Bell News there are several references to "half-
pull
> ringing".  I am assuming this is a reference to change ringing with 
changes
> occuring at handstroke and backstroke.  Was the alternative call 
changes or
> was there an era of whole-pull change ringing?  In Alan Ellis's 
recent
> reproduction of Tinntinnalogia[?] there is a table of times taken 
to ring
> the various extents.  The time given for a 720 is 1 hour and 
everything else
> pro rata.  This is double the times given in recent RW Diaries.  
Was this
> whole-pull change ringing or did they really ring at half the 
present speed?
> 
> Andrew
>
In the Tintinnalogia, where you refer to the Table on p.60, I think
the writer was thinking in terms of whole pull ringing (one hour to
ring a720) because a few pages earlier (p 54) he had noted:
"All changes are to be Rang either by walking them (as the term is) or
else Whole-pulls, or Half-pulls. By walking them, is meant, that the
bells go round, four, six, eight times, or more, in one change, which
is commonly used by young Practisers; it may be sometimes on five
bells, Ringing the Twenty-four changes on the treble, second, third,
and fourth, the fifth bell striking behind every change; and many
other changes of the like nature may be practised this way by young
Ringers. Whole-pulls, is to Ring two Rounds in one change, that is,
Fore-stroke and Back-stroke, and in a change; so that every time you
pull down the bells at Sally, you make a new change differing from
that at the Back-stroke next before; this Whole-pulls was altogether
practised in former time, but of late there is a more quick and ready
way practised, called Half-pulls, which is—only one round in a change,
that is, one change made at the Fore-stroke, and another at the
Back-stroke, which way is now altogether in use (unless it be at some
great bells, which are too weighty to be managed up so high a Compass
at the Back-stroke, as Half-pulls requires) it being now a common
thing in London to Ring the 720 Changes, Trebles and Doubles, and
Grandsire Bob, Half-pulls, (which is commonly Rang with so round and
quick a Compass, that in the space of half an hour, or little more,
the 720 Changes are Rang out from the beginning to the end.) And also
the Six-scores Doubles and Singles, Old Doubles, Grandsire, and many
other cross Peals on five bells, are commonly Rang Half-pulls."

Half-pull ringing was only possible using either full wheels, or 3/4
wheels with the adjustment of a fillett or even a short spur of wood
which together with the 'Rowle' (see p136) effected the handstroke
pull. ||Probably rather difficult to manage on heavy bells.

mew