There is no knowledge of a complete peal of 5040 changes having been performed since 1798 till 1810, and again from 1810 till 1818, and lastly on Wednesday, the 10th October, 1821, rung at Horsham, by the Horsham Society, a true and complete peal of 5040 Grandsire Triples. Performed in 2 hours 59 minutes, as follows:—

After this the enthusiasm engendered by the possession of the new set of 8 bells in 1752 seems to have completely expired.

The high standard of excellence attained by the Horsham ringers of 1766-1798, attested by the above records, almost makes me wish I had been born a century before my time, so that I could have shared the honours they reaped; for, alas, when I joined in 1841 all the old skilful ringers had been dead many years. "Ichabod" was written over the Belfry door. The ringers of this time —John Vaughan, Edward Vaughan, Jas. Duffield, John Vaughan (the younger), Harry Vaughan, Ned Sturt, Joe Vaughan, Joseph Hopkins, and Ike Aldridge— and those for many years afterwards were unable to ring changes at all, and could not understand and appreciate the records made by their predecessors.

I was exceedingly enthusiastic in my new hobby, and whilst myself learning to ring, took what will seem to the reader a strange kind of pupil. I was always very fond of birds, and other animals too. Of birds I kept a great many —tom-tits, yellow-hammers, blackbirds, starlings, jackdaws, &c.— my
 

favourite was a starling, "Jack." I had brought him up and taught him to speak, so I thought I would also teach him to ring. Accordingly, I fitted a little bell with a rope in his cage, and taught him at my sign to pull the rope with his beak, and make the bell ring, and continue pulling till I signalled him to leave off. He was an apt pupil, and we grew very fond of each other. I could always leave his cage open without fear of losing him. Several times he flew away, but came back again alright; once he was away for three days. When I saw him returning I used to call out "Come on, Jack," "Come on, Jack," and he always seemed pleased to let me catch him.

From time immemorial it had been the custom to ring bells every Sunday morning, all the year round, to let the inhabitants know the time. At 7 a.m. the third bell was pulled up and rung for five minutes, at 8 o'clock the first and second bells were chimed, and again at 9 o'clock the seventh bell was pulled up and rung for five minutes; every evening, too, from Michaelmas to Ladytide; at 8 o'clock, the Curfew was rung on the fifth bell. I was soon trusted to fulfill these little offices and used to take a delight in them that some of my elders did not understand, especially in ringing the Curfew. I used to love the weird re-echoing sound up in the steeple, in the dark, above my head. I remember enjoying myself one night in this way, when Harry Vaughan bursts into the Belfry door. "Here, what the - does this mean: I've ben hearing you ringing for twenty minutes, as I walked from Picts Hill; you ought only to ring five minutes." With that he snatched the rope out of my hands, threw me out of the Belfry, and slammed and locked the door. I was able then to see what an enormity I had committed in giving the Curfew bell an extra quarter-of -an-hour.

Old John Vaughan, the sexton, was as straight and upright a character as ever lived. He would never lie, nor trim an unpleasant truth; would never do, nor knowingly profit by a mean trick. He and I had a great regard for each other. By some he was regarded as quite a paragon. Old Trush Taylor, who lived in the Normandy, was one day asked by the Vicar, Mr. Simpson, why he did not go to Church: "Because I don't want to," he replied, "I wants to be more like Mast'r Vaughan, and less like the parsons." But it must be admitted that with these and other virtues old John had a quality or two that could not be classed with them: he had an uneven temper and a despotic inclination which were neither in accordance with the sweetness of the bells, nor conducive to the study of campanology; sometimes, indeed, he would lock the Belfry up and refuse to let us ring at all. On one such occasion, just after I joined, on New Year's Eve, we had been down and rung the bells early in the evening, and had adjourned, as usual, to the "Wonder" beerhouse — later called the "Talbot", at the Town Hall end of Pump Alley — there to wait till 11.30, the usual time to start ringing the Old Year out; something or other, however, induced a fit of crabbiness in the old man, and he vowed we should not return to the Belfry that night. He was not appeased by frequent doses of alcohol — of which, indeed, all partook except myself, who was then but a boy, anxiously waiting to do my turn at pulling the New Year in — nor by the arguments of Ned Sturt who, as the best spokesman, was very conciliatory, reminding him of the time-honoured custom now almost due to be repeated, and of the large number of people who would be disappointed by his determination if persisted in. As time crept on, arguments got to remonstrances and threats, and finally the two began tussling. They had got to the pitch of pulling

each other round the tap-room, and had just broken a chair in the scuffle, when Sturt's wife appeared on the scene. She summed up the situation at a glance, and immediately brought to bear upon it the militant qualities of the modern suffragette; seizing a leg of the broken chair she flung it bang at old Vaughan, catching him right on the chest. "You under-minded old rascal you, I'll teach you to interfere with my man — Clear out!" And clear out we all did quickly; old John's obstinacy, which Ned was unable to overcome, instantly subsided, and the tussle was immediately adjourned or drawn. Ned Sturt was condemned to the effect of the vote of a woman for the rest of his life apparently, for he never came ringing any more; whilst the rest of us, in our eagerness to avoid further offending the suffragette, almost tip-toed back down the Causeway, just in time to pull the bells before the clock struck twelve. I am glad to say that during the 65 consecutive years that I helped ring the Old Year out and the New Year in at the old Horsham Church we all of us always, with this one exception, spent the evening harmoniously together.

Isaac Aldridge was about the only ringer here who possessed any intelligent idea of change ringing, but he was by no means a really good ringer, as I afterwards understood; most of the time in the belfry was spent in aimlessly ringing or chiming the old Queen's Changes — 1,3,5,7,2,4,6,8, — &c., an occupation that by no means satisfied the ambitions I had engendered and was now nursing; for I had heard of the success of the old Horsham ringers, as set forth above, and of the doings of other ringers round about.

My first knowledge of good ringing was got from the Warnham ringers. On Christmas Eve, 1846, I was standing with a brother ringer, Wm. Norket, at the bottom of the Bishopric; 'twas a clear, frosty
 

evening, with the wind in the north, and as we stood we heard the six Warnham bells ringing beautifully. I proposed going over there, and we started at once. When we arrived we found old Ike Aldridge ringing treble, and the others in the following order: Frank Osborne, 2; Michael Turner, 3; John Hogsflesh, 4; Ned Turner, 5; Michael Charman, 6. They were ringing scientifically; everything seemed to be so nice and lively, and as regular as clockwork. I had now been ringing some time, and I felt ashamed of the Horsham ringers. As we walked home with Ike Aldridge I ventured to comment upon the superiority of the Warnhamites, but he was not disposed to admit it: "Pooh," he said, "they are a rough lot; they rush and tear about like tigers." After the visit to Warnham I felt I should like to go to Newdigate to see change-ringing done at its best. The Newdigate ringers at this time enjoyed the reputation of being champions: Mr. James Broadwood, of Lyne, was so proud of them that he gave out, on their behalf, a challenge to any other set of ringers in England to ring for £500; but it was not taken up. When, therefore, Ned Turner, of Warnham, offered to take me to see Tom Gadd, the Newdigate head ringer, I felt very proud indeed. One Saturday afternoon we walked to Newdigate together, and he introduced me: "Tom," he said, "here's a lad that'll ring you a 720 first time of trying." Gadd eyed me rather doubtfully, remarking, "Well, he looks as if his head is screwed on right." We almost immediately went to the Belfry, and had just pulled the bells up ready to start when a message came from the Vicarage to the effect that we must not ring, as someone was ill in the house. To be deprived of the honour I had been looking forward to just as I had got the rope in my hands was keenly disappointing to me. Observing this, Ned Proposed

that he, Gadd, and I should walk to Ockley, four miles away, and try a ring there, as the best to be done under the circumstances, and this we did. With three of the Ockley ringers we rang a 720 plain bob right through without a word. When we had finished old Gadd looked at me: "Do you mean to say you've never rung that peal before?" he asked. "I've never tried before," I replied. I was delighted to find that I had made a good impression upon so important an individual, and it resulted in a warm open invitation to Newdigate as often as I liked to go. I went there regularly and frequently, and took to proper change-ringing as a duck takes to water. The company of the ringers, too, I found very enjoyable, and they always seemed pleased for me to come. Alec Gadd lent me their ringing book to copy out; this I did, committing the changes to memory. The next time I went up I was aked if I could sing a song. "Yes," I replied, "I'll sing you 'Boney's farewell to Paris,' if you'll let me ring the College Exercise peal with you." "What?" they asked, "can you ring that; that's a rum 'n?" "I know every wrinkle in it, and I can ring every blessed peal you've got in your book," I replied, confidently. So it was agreed. I sang the song, they were delighted; we rang the College peal, and thenceforth I was on the regular staff, so to speak, of the Newdigate ringers. Every Saturday evening I walked there — 8 miles — arriving about 7 o'clock. We rang up to 10 o'clock, and then all of us ringers and friends used to adjourn to the "Six Bells" Public House for a jollification, drinking and smoking and song singing in turn. I was just in my element; I knew so many songs at this time that I sang them a fresh lot every time I went: they knew but few, and these I quickly learnt and added to my stock. We invariably kept the merriment going up to 12 o'clock, after which I used to walk home, usually

arriving between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning. My father and mother did not much like my keeping these late hours. "Ah, my boy," Father used to say, "you'll get your nob cracked one of these nights. " My intimacy with the Newdigate ringers got so warm that they tried to induce me to live amongst them, offering to build me a shoemaker's shop if I would consent to do so: one would dig the foundations, another would do the bricklaying, whilst yet another undertook to do the carpentering, &c.; but I preferred to live in my native town of old Horsham, where I had continued ringing all the time. Indeed, circumstances soon after their kind offer compelled me to cease my regular attendance at Newdigate, for I was now visiting other belfrys in the neighbourhood. My enthusiasm and skill as a ringer, and my success as a song singer, brought me invitations from places for miles around, and made me welcome wherever I went. At many of the places I visited I was asked to undertake teaching the natives the art of change-ringing, and as the task was a congenial one, and a paying one to boot, I readily undertook it.

These pleasant duties caused me a good deal of walking, as I used almost always to have to walk certainly to or from (generally both ways) the villages I attended, and this fine exercise acted as an antidote to my sedentary occupation — bootmaking. At Crawley, for instance, I was engaged one night a week for six months. The vicar, Mr. Lennard, a most amiable gentleman, was one of my pupils. He tried hard to induce me to stay there the night, after ringing, perhaps up to 10.30 p.m., but I always insisted upon going home instead, and there was then no way of doing so but that of walking. At Slinfold, too, where I taught change-ringing, I was regularly engaged for some time, and greatly benefitted by the walk, my only means of getting to and fro. I some-

times on these journeys walked Nowhurst way for a change, a fact that recalls to my mind an old legend of the district.

It is said that in the time of the Roman occupation of Britain a huge bell, cast in Rome and intended for York Minster, was being carried from Chichester up Stane Street — the old Roman road that passes along the west of Slinfold — when it fell into a bog, from which the people were unable to rescue it, and it sank. It remained buried for centuries, its fate traditionally surviving down to mediæval times when witches prospered. One of these, it is said, told the people how to get the bell up again. They were to yoke a certain number of pure white heifers together, and these, by means of a long chain fixed to the bell (I don't know how the chain was to be fixed to the sunken bell; perhaps the old witch undertook to do that), would pull it up alright provided no one spoke during the operation. The old witch's instructions were being carried out, the heifers pulled well, and had almost got the bell to a place of safety, when one man, who thought the job completed, sang out, " We now have got the Nowhurst Bell, in spite of all the devils in hell." Immediately the chain broke, the bell sank back into the bog, and there it remains to this day.

My first important ringing engagement was in 1843, when Mr. C. G. Eversfield came of age. Since that time I have rung at every event at which the services of the ringers were required until 1908, when I was 82 years old, and I've missed but one or two since that — local weddings, coming-of-age of the gentry in the neighbourhood, Royal births, weddings, jubilees, and funerals (muffled bells). Occasionally we were engaged to ring without being told the nature of the event we were thus to celebrate. In 1868 we were sent down our fee, and requested to ring

The following is a list of Belfries in which I have rung changes. Those marked with an asterisk are places where I have taught ringing:—