[Bell Historians] Circulation history

[Richard Johnston]

John Harrison wrote:

> Before 1994 the Ringing World (and Bell News) was the only communication
> channel for ringers apart from cascading information down through
> societies and towers. 

It was, and that made it a fundamentally different type of publication from 
what it is today - for instance.

The publication was not dominated by two or three very long articles (which may 
run over three issues) as it is now. 

It had a large number of very short articles reporting on meetings and events. 
These could contain items of interesting local detail - eg I recently found a 
1920s tower visit report that reported on the out of order placement of the 
bellropes at a tower it visited. 

It had many adverts for ringing meetings which could be followed up by 
attending them.  

>From it you could keep in touch with what was going on across the country, at a 
lower level than you can now.  Today, that level of detail is either not 
recorded at all, is on websites that may vanish, or is in Guild publications.

> 
> But the 6k in 1970 was between 15 & 20% of the number of ringers.  Did
> enough of those who did subscribe take their copy to the tower for
> everyone to see it?  If not then a lot of ringers were not on any network
> other than la local grapevine.

It is and always was the case that a large number of ringers were only 
interested in their local tower, or at most the local branch of the Guild.  
Those were the only people they knew or cared about.  

Ringers who weren't of a standard where they would get their name in the RW for 
a performance would be far less likely to read it let alone subscribe.  Today 
that proportion is larger than it was because the generally older intake of 
learners don't get as far with their ringing, and those who can can see their 
name in lights elsewhere..

> 
> If Goldsmith's claim is correct then in the 1920s 25-30% of ringers
> subscribed.  And if the custom of taking copies into towers was as
> widespread as his continual complaints suggest then maybe most ringers
> were connected.
> 

The real question though, was and is whether what is in the publication is 
going to be of use or interest to them.

Richard Johnston