[Bell Historians] Trinity Church bells, Port of Spain, Trinidad.

[Carl S Zimmerman]

At 16:59 +0100 08/10/25, David Cawley wrote:
>Most of these dates are at variance with the GCNA site; so it would 
>be interesting to know ther source for their dates of 1819 [1] 1871 
>[1] 1880 [2] and unknown [4].


Source:  RW 14 Apr 1995, p.377, text and photos.  I assume that the 
visitor who reported these bells could not inspect four of them 
closely enough to see what dates are in the inscriptions.

David, thanks for the information from the Whitechapel catalogues. 
None of that information was available to me before.  Your words 
"five new bells (two new and three recast) to make the chime of eight 
in 1880" are certainly a logical deduction, but I don't see the 
supporting evidence in the extracts which you cited.  However, some 
amount of recasting is certainly possible in view of the quotation 
about damage to the church in 1825.

I wonder whether the 5-bell notation in the 1884 catalogue is similar 
to the 8-bell notation in the later catalogues - a summary of work 
completed, rather than the report of a single job.  If the recasting 
of bells damaged in 1825 (or later) occurred in 1871, and the 
expansion from 6 to 8 occurred in 1880, that would fit.  But 1819 
remains unexplained.

Anybody have a friend in Trinidad who could go look for us?  ;-)

Carl
GCNA Webmaster

P.S.  From elsewhere on the Web:  Trinity Church became Trinity 
Cathedral, and in 1930 the British colonial government gave to 
Trinity a tower clock; it was accompanied by a "Westminster 
eight-bell chime system" given by a ship's captain in memory of his 
wife.

P.P.S.  I'd love to know which Catholic Church got an octave in 1830, 
and whether it survives!