All Saints Cathedral Bells

Aboriginal occupation of the Blue Mountains area dates back at least 12,000 years and appears to have intensified some 3000–4000 years ago. In pre-colonial times the area now known as Bathurst was inhabited by Aboriginal people of the Wiradjuri linguistic group. The clan associated with Bathurst occupied on a seasonal basis most of the Macquarie River area. They moved regularly in small groups but preferred the open land and used the waterways for a variety of food. There are numerous river flats where debris from recurrent camps accumulated over a long period. European settlement in this region after the first documented white expedition west of the Blue Mountains in 1813 was tentative because of apprehensions about resistance from Aboriginal people. There was some contact, witnessed by sporadic hostility and by the quantity of surviving artefacts manufactured by the Aborigines from European glass. By 1840 there was widespread dislocation of Aboriginal culture, aggravated after 1850 by the goldrush to the region.[1]

Prior to European settlement in Australia, the Wiradjuri Aboriginal group lived in the upper Macquarie Valley. Bathurst was proclaimed a town by Lachlan Macquarie on 7 May 1815, named after Lord Bathurst, Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies. Bathurst is Australia's oldest inland township.[1]

Governor Macquarie chose the site of the future town of Bathurst on 7 May 1815 during his tour over the Blue Mountains, on the road already completed by convict labour supervised by William Cox. Macquarie marked out the boundaries near the depot established by surveyor George Evans and reserved a site for a government house and domain. Reluctant to open the rich Bathurst Plains to a large settlement, Macquarie authorised few grants there initially, one of the first being 1000 acres to William Lawson, one of the three European explorers who crossed the mountains in 1813. The road-maker William Cox was another early grantee but later had to move his establishment to Kelso on the non-government side of the Macquarie River.[1]

A modest release of land in February 1818 occurred when ten men were chosen to take up 50 acre farms and 2 acre town allotments across the river from the government buildings. When corruption by government supervisor Richard Lewis and acting Commandant William Cox caused their dismissal, they were replaced by Lieutenant William Lawson who became Commandant of the settlement in 1818.[1]

Macquarie continued to restrict Bathurst settlement and reserved all land on the south side of the Macquarie River for government buildings and stock, a situation that prevailed until 1826. In December 1819 Bathurst had a population of only 120 people in 30 houses, two thirds being in the township of Kelso on the eastern side of the river and the remainder scattered on rural landholdings nearby. The official report in 1820 numbered Bathurst settlers at 114, including only 14 women and 15 children. The government buildings comprised a brick house for the commandant, brick barracks for the military detachment and houses for the stock keeper, and log houses for the 50 convicts who worked the government farm. Never successful, the government farm was closed by Governor Darling in 1828.[1]

Governor Darling, arriving in Sydney in 1825, promptly commenced a review of colonial administration and subsequently introduced vigorous reforms. On advice from Viscount Goderich, Darling divided colonial expenditure into two parts: one to cover civil administration, funded by New South Wales; the other for the convict system, funded by Britain.[1]

By this time, J. McBrien and Robert Hoddle had surveyed the existing grants in the vicinity. Surveyor James Bym Richards began work on the south side of the river in 1826. But the town was apparently designed by Thomas Mitchell in 1830 and did not open until late 1833 after Richards had completed the layout of the streets with their two-road allotments. The first sales were held in 1831 before the survey was complete.[1]

In 1832 the new Governor, Major General Sir Richard Bourke, visited Bathurst in October. He instructed the Surveyor General Major Thomas L. Mitchell to make arrangements for "opening the town of Bathurst without delay" and he in turn instructed the Assistant Surveyor at Bathurst J. B. Richards to lay out the blocks and streets. This was done in September 1833. It is believed that Major Mitchell named the streets, with George Street being named after King George III.[1]

The first Anglican parish west of the Blue Mountains was established in 1825 at Kelso. In 1848 the All Saints Anglican church was built in Bathurst to the design by Edmund Blacket; it became a cathedral in 1870. The incumbent parish priest in the initial period was Rev. Thomas Sharpe (whose private rectory, built 1845, was on the corner of Russell and Peel Streets and is now known as Miss Traill's House).[1]

A fund was soon opened and managed by Thomas Sloman, a prominent Bathurst businessman, to raise money for a peal of bells for the new church. The sizable sum of £800 was raised by public subscription and in February 1851 Mr Sloman sailed for England to order the six bells from the Warner & Sons Crescent Foundry of London. Meanwhile, the Blacket-designed bell tower was constructed. Although the bells arrived in Sydney in February 1855, the transport of heavy bells over the Blue Mountains was difficult, and the church had to depend on free transport at a time when many people were rushing to the goldfields nearby. The bells came one by one from May 1855 and were not completely hung until 8 December 1855. The bells rang out their first peal in Bathurst early in 1856. Owing to a perpetuated piece of misinformation, it has often been stated that the All Saints bells were the first to be pealed in Australia, but there were in fact bells long before in Hobart and Melbourne, and at least three had been in existence in Sydney, one from as early as 1807. St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney had a peal of large bells by 1844. However the Bathurst Cathedral Bells were the first to be rung outside the colonial capitals.[1]

A few days after the bells were in place, on 13 December 1856, the Bathurst townsfolk learned that the Russian fortress of Sebastopol had been captured by the allied forces fighting in the Crimean War. Spontaneous celebrations began, with bonfires, fireworks and much singing and cheering. At about ten o'clock, while the evening festivities were at their height, some excitable lads thought of ringing the new bells to add to the festivities. Ropes had not even been attached, so iron bars were taken high into the tower and the bells were struck by the unruly lot, who had locked the doors against likely opposition. Even though Churchwarden Wise, with the help of a constable, was able to eject the intruders, the exuberants broke in again in the small hours and once more attacked the bells. Whether it was this rough treatment or not is not recorded, but the smallest of the bells was later found to be cracked, and in 1860 was returned to its foundry for recasting and was eventually re-shipped to Bathurst.[1]

The bells were rung regularly up until the early 1890s, when the swing of the bells when rung was discovered to be rocking the tower, and this was causing the cathedral walls to crack. At this time full circle ringing was replaced by simple chiming, i.e., the striking of still bells. While chiming was heard in Bathurst on Sundays until about 1969, no person living has ever heard them ringing full circle in the English tradition, which gives a quite different (and more resonant) sound. The sound of bells pealing is also quite different from the bells of a carillon, which play melodies rather than the mathematical permutations entailed in "ringing the changes". The bells were removed immediately prior to the demolition of the tower in 1970.[1]

After the demolition of the Blacket Cathedral building and bell tower in 1970, the six Bathurst Cathedral Bells languished in the open on the grass behind the Bathurst Courthouse nearby. In 1988, with the help of public subscription, they were sent to England for restoration by Whitechapel Bell Foundry and Eayre & Smith. They were returned to Bathurst in 1992 and have been held in storage by Dawsons Removals & Storage P/L at Lot 3 Littlebourne Street, Kelso, except for the one bell on display in the narthex or foyer of the cathedral. In 2000 a group of concerned people not associated with the parish came together to seek ways of reinstalling the silent cathedral bells. In 2002 at the instigation of Bishop Richard Hurford a community committee called the Cathedral Bells of Bathurst Supporters was formed under the chair of the dean of the cathedral the Very Reverend Andrew Sempell. A community appeal for reinstallation of the bells into a free-standing tower on site, with the addition of two new bells, was launched in September 2003.[1]

In 2004 there are ten surviving peals of nineteenth-century bells in New South Wales, all Anglican except for St Benedict's and St Mary's. In chronological order of their manufacture they are:

• St Benedict's (Roman Catholic), Sydney 1850
• Christ Church St Laurence, Sydney 1852-3
• All Saints, Bathurst, 1854.
• All Saints, Parramatta 1856-60
• St Philip's, Sydney 1858
• St Mark's, Darling Point, Sydney 1862
• St Jude's, Randwick 1864
• St Paul's, Maitland 1868-9
• St Clement's, Yass 1869, 1880
• St Mary's Cathedral (Roman Catholic), Sydney 1882[1]

Seven of these are within the metropolitan area of Sydney/Parramatta. The only country towns represented are Bathurst, Maitland and Yass. The most common English bell-founder represented is Whitechapel (responsible for five peals: St Benedict's, All Saints Parramatta, St Mark's Darling Point, St Mary's RC Cathedral and St Philip's). Only the Bathurst bells were cast by Warner & Sons.[2][1]

John Warner and Sons of Cripplegate in London, with a foundry at Stockton-on-Tees, was a highly regarded firm in this rather esoteric business. Created in 1739, the firm began to found bells in 1788 and continued (with a break between 1816 and 1850) until the firm closed in 1949, run by the Warner family for 210 years.[3][1]

Although all the records of the Warner foundry were reportedly destroyed during World War II, one researcher is aware of only four other Warner-made bell peals in Australia as well as two in New Zealand:

• St. Paul, Murrurundi (north of Scone in NSW) (10 bells, 1883, baton keyboard chime)
• Town Hall, Adelaide, (8 bells, 1866, ringing + chime barrel)
• St. John Cathedral, Brisbane (8 bells, 1876, augmented to 10 by Whitechapel in 1986)
• St. George Cathedral, Perth (only 1 bell remains of 8 cast in 1902)
• St. Peter, Wellington, NZ (8 bells, late 1880s; hung for ringing, but have only been chimed for decades because of weakness of the tower)
• St. George Cathedral, Auckland, NZ (8 bells, 1907, except one recast by Whitechapel in 1972).[4]

At their Stockton on Tees foundry in 1856, just a couple of years after completing the Bathurst cathedral bells, Warner & Sons cast the first version of the largest and still most famous bell in Great Britain, Big Ben. However the 16 ton (16,000 kg) bell developed a disastrous 1.2 metre crack while being tested in 1857. It was broken up and recast by George Mears of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry (this recast bell weighing nearly 14,000 kg also cracked two months into service but was kept, turned slightly and struck with a lighter hammer). Warner's best-known achievement still at work is the quarter-bells of Big Ben.[5] In New South Wales, their only full peal in potentially working order is the Bathurst set. Although there is a set of ten small Warner bells at Murrurundi which was installed in 1883 and is still there, it is thought that these bells are too light to constitute a viable peal. There is a fine 1889 single bell by the firm at St Paul's Burwood and a remarkable quarter-chiming clock-bell of 1890 still in the court-house at Wollongong.[3][1]

• All Saints Anglican Cathedral, Bathurst (2004). Tour guide notes for tour leaders.
• Hickson, Barbara (2003). SHI nomination form.
• Bernard Greaves, ed. (1961). The Story of Bathurst.
• Taylor, Daryl (2004). Interviews with heritage representatives Barbara Hickson and Bronwyn Hanna.
• Taylor, Daryl (2000). The Cathedral Bells of Bathurst.
• Government Architect's Office (2005). Bathurst Hospital Conservation Management Plan.
• HO & DUAP (NSW Heritage Office and the NSW Department of Urban Affairs and Planning) (1996). Regional Histories of NSW.
• Jack, Ian (2004). Correspondence and conversation.
• John D. Keating (1979). Bells in Australia.
• John Johnson Collection Exhibition (2001). "Warner & Sons business cards distributed at the 1851 Exhibition in London".
• Whitechapel Bell Foundry Ltd (1992). Business letter.
• Heritage Office SHRP (2001). Central West Pilot Program SHRP.

This Wikipedia article was originally based on Bathurst Cathedral Bells, entry number 01707 in the New South Wales State Heritage Register published by the State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) 2018 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 2 June 2018.