[Bell Historians] Development of change ringing

[Roderic Bickerton]

This has been aired in the past, without 
conclusion.
How could it be otherwise, as you cannot have 
one without, at least half the other.
I thought the general view was bells were 
probably got "up" on leavers, produced better 
more carrying sounds but were more or less 
uncontrollable.
As soon as some rope guidance is fitted 
(probably to stop the rope being damaged by the 
bell mouth), more control results, and 
inevitably results in experiment.
I suppose the big "what if" moment was someone 
trying to change order on two rows in succession 
rather than changing with at least one repeated 
row, like call changes.

It would make no sense to suggest the idea of 
change ringing came first, for a whole bunch of 
reasons:
For example;
The basic concept of no jump changes is an 
acceptance of the lack of control of rope and 
wheel.
There was nothing known like change ringing on 
other instruments, handballs or otherwise.
Nice Christmas guesswork, with no chance of 
being spoilt by inconvenient historic fact.




> Did the idea that bells could theoretically be 
> rung in changes result in
> the development of the wheel (three-quarter 
> and then full) or was it the
> development of the wheel which gave rise to 
> the notion of
> change-ringing?
>
> John Camp
>
>