[Bell Historians] Rudhall's records.

Fri Aug 19 10:12:29 BST 2016

Excuse a brief reply (partly from memory rather than checked at source) but having worked on the Rudhalls extensively for forty-plus years I may be able to save people time and trouble in hunting for answers here.

There are no surviving Rudhall records as such. There is a single volume 1828-1835 among the Prideaux family papers at Bristol Record Office (Ms20535(335)) – a Prideaux married a Rudhall daughter. I have had a copy of this since the mid- 1970s. Mary Bliss wrote an article about this volume (Transactions of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Arch Soc, Vol.121 (2003) pp.11-22) –although she repeats the unproven tradition that Mears took over the foundry in 1829 and effectively suggests (wrongly, I believe) that the volume exists because Mears made Rudhall keep better records. Rudhall, I’m sure, maintained ownership and control of the foundry until his death in 1835 although it was a diminished affair after his bankruptcy in 1813/14. 

I think there is reason to believe that the Gloucester records did not go to Whitechapel with the foundry plant, as in the 1870s they were advertised for sale by a descendant of the foundry foreman still living in Gloucester – and a Mr Pearson is noted as having expressed interest in them. There the trail goes cold, I think. I have further details on this but not immediately to hand.

There are several copies of the 1830 catalogue, which was also published in the supplement to one of Ellacombe’s “Church bells of” books. There’s an annotated copy at Whitechapel (framed in the lobby area I think), and it was from this that Mears & Stainbank took the details they used to send out their weight charts (as the one David describes) in the 1880s and 1890s. Having investigated this whole subject in some detail, I’m pretty sure that the information came from the list – and not from original records – sometimes supplemented by dates etc from the “Church Bells of …” books available at that time. There’s a photostat of this version in the ringing room at All Saints, Worcester, incidentally.

There is also a copy of the 1830 catalogue (or list) in the Prideaux papers at Bristol (ref: Ms20535(381)), and I have a copy of that one. Other catalogues were published by the Rudhalls in 1705, 1715 and 1751 (all at the Bodleian Library), 1743 (V&A), 1774 (no known copy), 1788 (in private ownership but I made a transcript of it) and 1804 (Gloucestershire archives – but published in Fred Sharpe’s Herefordshire book pp.704-5). The lists up to 1804 list every parish for which the Rudhalls supplied bells with the number of bells cast for each one. The 1830 catalogue just lists the rings – with number of bells and tenor weights. It is also far from complete

As far as Macclesfield (Christ Church) goes – I've just extracted these details from my copies of the lists – the entries are as follows:

1788 list - CHESHIRE.

Macclesfield New Church      10

   The Gift of Charles Roe, Esq.

Macclesfield Old Church          8

1804 list - CHESHIRE.

Macclesfield New Church      10

   The Gift of CH. ROE, Esq.

Macclesfield Old Church          8

1830 list

New Church, Macclesfield, Cheshire 10 [bells] 24 [cwt tenor]

Old Church, ditto 8 19

Needless to say, no-one would be more delighted than me to find that the records of the Gloucester foundry have survived – or discover copies of further catalogues. While I think the possibility of anything turning up unexpectedly is pretty slim, it is paradoxically true that as time goes on it is becoming easier to find out about the past in some respects – and undiscovered resources do come to light. 

Chris Pickford

From: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com [mailto:bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: 18 August 2016 16:43
To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Bell Historians] Rudhall's records.

Christ Church Macclesfield has a ring of 10, full details of which are of course in Dove's Guide. The original peal of 10 was installed by Thomas Rudhall in 1777, immediately after the completion of the church itself, and bells 3 to 8 thereof remain. The treble and 2nd were sold off in 1815 when a new 9th was provided by William Dobson of Downham, the tenor was recast by Taylors in 1902, and the two new trebles were added by Taylors in 1947 to restore the peal to 10. 

In the ringing chamber there is a framed, old handwritten sheet giving the approx weights of the original Rudhall 10, and inscribed at the bottom "Mears & Stainbank, 267 Whitechapel Road London". On the back of this framed document was sellotaped a very fragile cutting from some unknown publication, bearing the following information:

"Mr Abraham Rudhal l started the Gloucester Bell Foundry in 1684. He was succeeded by his sons, Abraham and Abel, who were followed successively by Thomas, Charles and John Rudhall.

520 Peals are recorded in Messrs Rudhalls Catalogue, published in 1830.

On their retirement, Mr Thomas Mears, of the Whitechapel Foundry, acquired and continued the Gloucester business under his own name, but after a few years he transferred the patterns, &c., to his London Foundry."

My query is, do any copies of the Rudhall's 1830 Catalogue still exist, and if so where? Presumably Whitechapel might still have the original Rudhall records?

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