[r-t] New Grandsire [was Old methods]

[Don Morrison]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 5:00 PM, edward martin
<edward.w.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/7/22 Mark Davies <mark at snowtiger.net>:
>>
>> Eddie, me old cock, things have moved on: it's not the 17th Century any
>> more.
...
> Well that is a sad reflection on the current state of affairs & your
> thinking. Here you have a method that's been with us from the beginning,
> that has a plain course forced upon it so that smart arses can categorise
> all change ringing methods as having plain courses, when clearly it is
> incidental to the methid's principle

When did the shift from the 17C view to the modern view take place? Or
if you prefer, when did the shift from the historically informed view
to the smart arse view take place? Certainly by the mid-19C the modern
view seems to have been well established. In Benjamin Thackrah's _The
Art of Change Ringing_ (1852, pp16ff) is described a course of
Grandsire Doubles, consisting of three plain leads, which it is
recommended that "young practioners" perfect before trying bobs. And
he appears to use it as his introduction to other methods, structured
in the same way, as a plain course, modified by occasional calls.

How much before 1852 did this view of Grandsire develop, and the older
one fall away?


-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
"I believe that my duties as a poet involve friendship not only with
the rose and with symmetry, with exalted love and endless longing,
but also with unrelenting human occupations."
                                  -- Pablo Neruda, 1971 Nobel lecture