Newcastle

[Bill Hibbert]

Andrew Aspland:
> Illuminate us then.

While entering the tuning figures into my database after the CC 
weekend I was struck by various similarities and differences between 
the figures for St Matthew and St Stephen, despite the tenors being 
4cwt different in weight (the rest of the bells are quite close).

At the risk of repeating well-known facts, here is part of the 
chronology:
1880: St Stephen's cast
1880s: Taylors supposedly begin to investigate continental bells
1894: partial set of forks purchased
May 1895: Taylors routinely recording figures for hum, prime, tierce 
and nominal
1895: St Matthew's cast and tuned
February 1896: new tuning machine delivered
1896: first true-harmonic peals produced
... time passes and some more bells are cast and tuned :-)
1939: St Stephen's retuned.

I assume that in 1939 Taylors achieved the very best that could be 
had from the 1880 bells. In 1895, one supposes that accurate tuning 
of partials was still a developing skill.

With this as background, looking at the hums of the two peals: St 
Matthew's are a bit rough and ready, but none are far from the double 
octave; in St Stephen's, despite the best efforts of 1939, the hums 
are nothing like as good as St Matthews. Looking at the primes: 
neither peal has octave primes, but St Matthew's are generally rather 
closer than St Stephen's, despite the best efforts of 1939. St 
Stephen's 7th has an octave prime, suggesting that originally this 
partial was sharp. The nominals of both peals are very good.

Looking at the higher partials, which Andrew Higson doesn't give, the 
Elswick bells are thinner than St Matthew's. Comparison with other 
Taylor peals of similar date suggests this was metal removed in 1939 
rather than the original 1880 design. The St Matthew's bells show a 
uniformity of design between trebles and tenors not evident in 
earlier peals.

The conclusion I drew was that in 1895 Taylor's had reached a shape 
that could potentially give octave hums, and were capable of 
reasonable tuning of hums and good tuning of nominals. They were on 
the way to solving the problem of the flat prime but did not achieve 
this (presumably by further shape changes and practice on the tuning 
machine) until early the next year.

That was the background to my comment. David Cawley speaks of myths 
exploded: David, could you enlighten us on this?

Regards,

Bill H