The bells of Joseph Smith of Edgbaston.

Joseph Smith is known to have cast bells from 1701 up to his death in 1736. His output is currently known to be 178 bells, of which 93 currently survive. His earliest job was the provision of a ring of six for Handsworth, Staffordshire, so clearly he had learnt his trade at another foundry. There are a number of complete rings cast by him which survive to this day; Brinklow, 5 of 1705; Rugby, 5 of 1711; Sheriff Hales, 5 of 1722 and Hampton in Arden (now at Nether Whitaker), 6 of 1725. Almost complete rings include Willoughby, Warwickshire where 5 of 6 remain and Dunchurch, Warwickshire (5 remaining of 6) and this ring includes his largest surviving bell at 16cwt 3qrs.
Recently, the complete three at Armitage, Staffordshire, cast by him in 1727, have been removed from the tower for restoration and augmentation (by Hayward Mills Associates), and these have been examined (see photographs). They have turned out to be rather remarkable in that they are well in tune with each other. This is even more surprising in that none of them have been tuned at all, for they are all maiden castings. The figures  below are in Hertz, and the figures in brackets are the frequencies of each note if it was in tune with itself.

	Nominal	Quint	Tierce	Fundamental	Hum	
Treble	1334	957 (1001)	798 (800)	642 (667)	338 (334)	
Second	1176	881 (882)	702 (706)	585 (588)	293 (294)	
Tenor	1063	775 (797)	644 (637)	527 (531)	275 (266)	

To be in tune with each other the nominals should have been (using the tenor as reference):
Treble	1339 Hz
2nd	1193 Hz
Tenor	1063 Hz

Thus it can be seen that Smith was pretty close to getting all three bells correct, with the second being remarkably good. During the recent restoration and augmentation to six this bell was not tuned at all..

Physical data on the bells:

	Diameter (ins)	Weight	Tangent (ins)	Shoulder circ. (ins)	
Treble	24.31	2.2.7	17.75	43.5	
Second	26.75	3.1.19	19.375	47.625	
Tenor	30.25	4.3.11	22	52.75	

(Note: The weights above are the weights of the bells ‘as cast’, before removal of canons and tuning)
Now the question occurs: was Smith just lucky with this job or are there other examples of his work that are as good, or indeed any where near as good, as this job? To answer this we have to look at other rings.
Willoughby, cast in 1713, have not been tuned at a later date by other founders, and the middle bells here are (to quote Chris Pickford) ‘pretty good’ (the tenor was recast by William Chapman in 1781). This is indeed confirmed by a recent visit and tonal analysis:

Bell	
Nominal	
Quint	
Tierce	
Fundamental	
Hum	

Treble	
1179	
912	
692	
550 (589)	
292 (294)	

2	
1057	
817	
627	
521 (528)	
264 (264)	

3	
946	
725	
568	
477 (473)	
241 (236)	

4	
899 	
704	
544	
463 (450)	
231 (225)	

5	
792	
623	
481	
425 (396)	
204 (198)	

Tenor	
707	
559	
441	
366 (353)	
196 (177)	

	Nominal	Quint	Tierce	Fundamental 	Hum	
Treble	1345	1000 (1009)	804 (807)	624 (672)	338 (336)	
Second	1196	910 (897)	711 (718)	580 (598)	305 (299)	
Third	1108	826 (831)	664 (665)	538 (554)	279 (277)	
Fourth	986	720 (740)	590 (592)	484 (493)	245 (246)	
Tenor	869	634 (652)	522 (521)	429 (434)	216 (217)	
Rugby (cast in 1711) were tuned by Taylors in 1930 when they were rehung. However the figures survive for the untuned bells:

Again the bracketed figures refer to what the internal harmonics should be. This time it can be seen that the bells are not as good as the Armitage three, but still quite fair. They show increasingly worse fundamentals the smaller the bell, but the rest of the figures are pretty good. As a ring however they are ‘stretched’, with the lighter bells getting progressively sharper, hence the tuning by Taylors. The ‘in tune’ nominals  should be:

1304 Hz, 1159 Hz, 1096 Hz, 976 Hz and 869 Hz.

We do not know if these bells were all ‘maidens’ or whether Smith had chip-tuned them. Either way they represent a creditable set of bells for the period. It is interesting to note that the small bells here are the least good, though they are similar in size to the Armitage bells

From a look at just these two rings of bells we are led to the conclusion that Joseph Smith had a good understanding of bell design and was able to produce bells close to modern standards at a time when many other founders could not. So where did he learn his trade, and  under whose superintendence? His lettering is a plain Roman capital lettering set, so this gives us no clue. Walters (in Church Bells of Warwickshire, page 73) comments on the similarity of some decorations with those of the Bagleys, so this may indicate his origins. Wherever he learnt, however, he learnt well and bells such as the Armitage three are a fine testament to him.

Acknowledgements.
Chris Pickford for information about, and the list of known bells of, Joseph Smith. Andrew Higson of Taylors for the notes of the Rugby bells. Messrs Hayward Mills Associates for data on the Armitage bells.
George A Dawson.
31.12.2001.