William Dobsons foreign bells.

Ever since I obtained details of the manuscript list of William Dobsons bells (as noted by him in a letter to the Dean of Lincoln, dated 1828), I have been intrigued by the fact he managed to export bells abroad. A founder living in Norfolk seems an unlikely source of bells in foreign parts. The London founders and the Rudhalls at the western sea-port at Gloucester seem much more logical sources of bells. However bells were exported and one particular export gives us a clue as to the mechanism of foreign sales.
An entry in the Saleslist is 'Wabash State of Indiana'. 
A letter to Wabash Visitors Bureau resulted in a reply which indicated the bell went to the Harmony Society, commonly called Rappites at Harmony, Posey County, Indiana. This group was led by George Rapp, a native of Germany. The site is now the New Harmony State Historic Site and the Curator kindly sent me extracts of a book called 'Harmony Society Documentary History', extracts from which I quote below which show the progress of the order for the bell as well as the bell itself:

Philadelphia Sept 9 1817
To Messrs Wm Barber & Co. Liverpool
Gentlemen, On the recommendation of Mr. H. K. Helmuth of this City I take the Liberty to address myself to your respectable House, for the purpose of procuring a Bell to weigh between 15 & 16 Cwt. from one of the Founderies in England. It is intended for a religious Society of Germany, who have settled themselves on the Wabash River, Indiana State, in a place called Harmony.  ...the Bell is chiefly intended to notify particular Hours of the Day to Members who may be occupied in different, and at times distant parts of the Settlement. The sound should therefore not only be solemn, but loud. I request it may be immediately engaged and when finished shipped by some good vessel bound to New Orleans .... The price of Musical Bells I perceive from a Statement furnished by your House to Mr Sims of this City, is £Stg 7.15 pr Cwt & 12 Do. pr lb. for Clapper etc......

In due course Barbers replied to Rapp:

Liverpool 5 Jany 1818
Sir, We received your esteemed order from Philadelphia, ordering a Bell for your new settlement in Indiana, we have ordered it & have the pleasure of informing you it was cast on the 27th ulto: and will be with us in two or three weeks, we expect, the price of the mettle has advanced and it will be a little higher than the price quoted to Mr Sims....

The bell was duly sent to New Orleans where the local agents, W & D Flower wrote to Rapp:

New Orleans July 11 1818
Dear Sir,
We are this day in advice .... [of the].. Invoice and Bill of Lading for one Church Bell on board the ship Richard on your account which we believe is now in the river.

The bill was for £143 2s 3d, and with all shipping costs, insurance, etc totalled £153.7.1.

In due course Rapp wrote to a friend in Philadelphia on 14th May 1819:

We have recently received our bell from England via New Orleans, which I ordered the last time I was in Philadelphia. It has turned out very well and has a penetrating tone.

The bell was erected in a wooden church with tower at Harmony, and the tower also had a clock.
Eventually the Harmony site was sold to the British social reformer, Robert Owen, and the Rappites moved back to Pennsylvania. Owen renamed the site New Harmony. In about 1835 the church was struck by lightning and badly damaged. It was demolished and the wood used to build a warehouse by the Wabash River. The bell, weighing 1900lbs, was sold to 'someone in Cincinatti'. There the trail runs dry and enquiries at Cincinnati have not found the bell. Also searches at Liverpool Record Office have found no reference to William Barber & Co.

Another entry in Dobsons list is: 
West Indies
Island of St Vincent 3, 12Cwt.

This entry proved a little more difficult to find, but the article by Paul Williams (RW 14.6.1991, p.563) after his visit to the Caribbean finally gave the clue which solved the problem. At St. Georges Cathedral, Kingstown, St. Vincent he reported three bells (Warners 1869, Whitechapel 1925 and Taylors 1959) in a massive local timber frame, however unringable. Research at Taylors and Whitechapel (by Chris Pickford) reveal the bells recast were the Dobson bells. Details of them:

Treble inscribed: 	SUCCESS TO COMMERCE

Second inscribed:	PROSPERITY TO THE ISLAND OF SAINT VINCENT : 1820

Both these are typical of Dobsons style of inscription. 
The tenor inscription was lost when the bell was recast by Warners in 1869.
Physical data:
Treble diameter 	29.5", 	Weight 5cwt 1qr 20lbs	Recast by Taylors in 1959
Second diameter 	33" 	Weight 7cwt 1qr 20lbs.	Recast by Whitechapel in 1925

The diameter of the Warner tenor is 42" and it is reasonable to assume it replaced a bell of similar diameter, which would weigh about the 12cwt noted for the Dobson tenor. Thus we can deduce that Dobson cast the original three in 1820. 

A third entry is:

St. John, New Brunswick
Crockfords Directory reveals that there is a church dedicated to St John at St John, so enquiries were made to the New Brunswick Provincial Archives. St Johns Church was built in 1824/5 and one bell was provided. It survives and is inscribed:

WILLIAM DOBSON, FOUNDER, DOWNHAM, NORFOLK, ENGLAND 1828	32½”

The fourth entry of interest is:

Columbia, USA
There are many towns called Columbia in America, so I thought that one would be a needle-in-a-haystack job! However browsing the internet led to Columbia, Pennsylvania and their Local History Society. Enquiries there resulted in the information that the newly erected (in 1829) Town Hall had a single bell weighing 312 pounds. The Town Hall was demolished in the 1860’s and no record of the bell survives. I suppose there is a faint possibility that this is the Columbia in question and that was the relevant bell.

I haven't done any research on the last foreign Dobson commission:

The King of Grand Burny, Africa

Where is it anyway?

							George A Dawson.
Acknowledgements:

 Ron Woodward of Wabash who researched the original enquiry, Jenny Graham Lee, Curator of the New Harmony State Site. Chris Pickford for checking Whitechapel Records. Twilla Buttimer, Archivist at the New Brunswick Provincial Archives, Frederickton for help and Barbara Richard of St.Johns. John W Loose, County Historian at Columbia.