[Bell Historians] Fw: Bell Identification, Dalton le Dale, St.Andrew

Wed Nov 8 16:15:14 GMT 2017

I’ve had a quick look at Dennis Greenwood’s booklet on Post Reformation Bellfounders of York (1994), which contains a lot of useful relevant information.  

William Seller, the first of the Seller family of founders, is reckoned to have worked c. 1635-1687.  They generally seem to have spelt the name Seller rather than Sellars.  It’s just possible that this is by him.  His early bells are generally found in Lincolnshire, which suggests that during the mid seventeenth century he was working there rather than York.  However there’s no reason why a bell from there shouldn’t have found its way to County Durham, especially if it came by sea.

Dennis Greenwood comments that a noticeable feature of the work of the 17th/18th century York founders – the Smiths, the Sellers and the Daltons – is that they arranged their moulding wires (raised semicircular bands around the bell) in groups of three.  This may be a useful clue.  

Peter Rivet

Lancaster

From: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com [mailto:bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 8, 2017 2:11 PM
To: Bell Historians <bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [Bell Historians] Fw: Bell Identification, Dalton le Dale, St.Andrew [4 Attachments]

[Attachment(s) from Carl S Zimmerman included below] 

The attached inquiry is far outside my range of expertise.  I hope that a few of you might feel qualified to reply to the inquirer.

Carl Scott Zimmerman 
Saint Louis, Missouri, USA -
 - 19th c. home of at least 36 bell founders or resellers 
Tel. +1(314)821-8437 
Webmaster for www.TowerBells.org <http://www.TowerBells.org> 
 * Avocation: tower bells
 * Recreation: handbells
 * Mission: church bells

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: JEAN HAMILTON <jeanhamilton at btinternet.com <mailto:jeanhamilton at btinternet.com> >
To: csz_stl at swbell.net <mailto:csz_stl at swbell.net>  
Sent: Wednesday, November 8, 2017 7:50 AM
Subject: Bell Identification

Hello

I am a member of Dalton le Dale History Society (dalton-le-dalehistorysociety.org ) Within our village we are lucky to have a 12th Century church St. Andrews.

Recent work on the roof allowed access to the bell cote and photographs to be taken of the bells. We are subsequently interested in researching their history and would be grateful for any assistance you can provide.

The first reference to bells in St. Andrews church was in the inventory ordered by the Bishop in 1553: this included two bells in the steeple, one hand bell and one sacring bell. The next reference can be seen within a plaque on the south wall of the nave with the date 1631 and four sets of initials. Some of this information is repeated on the tenor bell. The raised letters are MC, ED, WS, and IT, together with the date 1631.The initials on the plaque are CW, ED, WS and IT. There is therefore and anomaly between MC and CW. We suspect the initials WS may relate to William Sellars of York who made bells around 17th century. The initials MC could relate to the vicar of the church between 1621 and 1662 i.e. Matthew Cooper. The national bell register identifies the second bell as 14th century but does not bear any identifying features.

I have attached photographs.

Many thanks for taking the time to read this.

Regards

Jean Hamilton

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