[Bell Historians] Sonning Deanery - changing practice

[Richard Johnston]

On 26 Jul 2026 at 2:17,John Harrison  wrote:
> Subject: [Bell Historians] Sonning Deanery - changing practices
> 
> I've just completed some research on how ringing practices evolved in
> Sonning Deanery, having discovered rather to my surprise that there were
> none until 30 years after the society was founded.  That led me to dig
> into the records where I found the topic was a recurring theme at AGMs.
> 
> The specifics are local but it might be of wider interest, especially if
> anyone has done something similar elsewhere.
> 
> See: https://jaharrison.me.uk/New/Articles/PracticeHistory.pdf
> 

Yes, very interesting, especially the lack of society ringing practices in the early days.  You ask 
why.

But that doesn't surprise me.  The early Sonning committee is dominated by clergy, and their 
interest, as elsewhere, was about them (middle class clergy) taking control over working class 
bellringers, and eliminating the latter's independence, and making them subject to their local 
vicar's control within their own tower, and typically also required to be regular members of the 
church.. 

It seems to me that the associated promotion of method ringing wasn't primarily about improving 
ringing. Rather it had two main immediate effects - it removed traditional ringers who were 
unwilling to conform, and those who remained were humiliated back to status of novices, and made 
subserviant.  All were now required to do what the vicar wanted, just like his domestic servants.  
The likely short run effect was that there was less ringing, and in most cases the clergy would not 
have been bothered by that. They now had control over ringers and ringing, and they wanted to make 
sure it stayed that way.  The failure to be able to provide adequate method ringing training is no 
surprise.

So I'm not surprised that the emphasis was on towers and not individual ringers, and that there 
were no early practice meetings.  Meetings between ringers from different towers was potentially 
subversive to the clergy agenda, and so training was focussed within each tower.  By the time the 
practice meetings started in 1910, the intensity of clergy control was declining, as the process of 
reasserting ringer independence got underway.

In Devon there were meetings of the Guild of Devonshire Ringers from the start in 1874, but there 
is evidence to suggest that the vicar was expected to attend with his band, presumably to keep his 
eye on them.  

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Corrections:
Section 6 paragraph 1.  Blackout restrictions were imposed on 1 Sept 1939.

There seems to be a problem with the first sentence of the third paragraph of section 6.

Richard Johnston