Big Ben’s Brexit bongs would chime with British tradition
The idea of Big Ben bonging on the night we are liberated from the European Union ties in with a tradition that, like most British customs, dates back only about a century or so. The first time the nation’s church bells rang as a signal of widespread relief was on Monday Nov 11 1918, when they signalled the end of what was supposed to be the war to end all wars. It was far more in keeping with ancient practice that Churchill’s administration ordered church bells to be silent after June 13 1940, and to be rung only to warn the people in the event of an invasion; it is popularly thought they were not rung again until V-E Day (when church bells were certainly rung), but, in fact, once the threat of invasion was lifted, the Government
In 1911, most churches with a peal of bells and a team of ringers marked the coronation of George V
Bells were rung for the millennium and to mark the progress of the Olympic torch before the 2012 games
allowed their use again, from Easter Sunday 1943.
A coordinated ringing of bells was largely unknown before the last century, precisely because there was no reliable means of coordinating the process – except for one village hearing the distant bells of another and responding itself. A tour around English churches will reveal belltowers that proclaim the bells were installed to mark Queen Victoria’s golden or diamond jubilees in 1887 or 1897; but it was very much left to local wishes whether all church bells rang for those occasions, or indeed for the coronations of 1902 and 1911, though certainly by 1911 most churches with a peal of bells, and a team of enthusiastic ringers, marked the occasion during coronation day – and this was even more the case in 1937 and 1953.
In recent memory, bells were rung for the Queen’s three jubilees, in 1977, 2002 and 2012, for the millennium and in towns and villages through which the Olympic torch passed for the 2012 London games. But otherwise, the long history of English church bells reflects far more practical purposes, and usually specifically religious ones.
Bells originated in early Christian Europe as a call to prayer. Missionaries brought them to England during the seventh century, and by the middle of the eighth they were commonplace: though it would be centuries before the elaborate peals we think of today evolved. By the time of the Conquest, bells were part of the national soundscape, and rooted in our culture; superstition has it that the bells at Canterbury Cathedral rang of their own accord to protest against the murder of Thomas à Becket in 1170. For more humble deaths in less violent circumstances, the tolling of a single bell also denoted the death of a parishioner.
Nevertheless, many bells were removed at the time of the Reformation in the 1530s because they were identified with the practice of the then-despised Roman Catholic church. It is ironic that the ringing of bells is now sought by those seeking to celebrate a second breach with the continental mainstream.
However, utility soon won the day, and peals of bells were restored in time for them to be rung in 1586, to mark the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. Also, technology was improving, with installation of the wheels familiar now from our belfries, and the mounting of different bells of varying pitches in them. It was over the 17th and 18th centuries that bell-ringing as a community activity really took off, and became competitive, with teams seeing who could ring the longest peal. Books on the subject of campanology were written, and tunes were composed.
In 1832, some places in England rang their bells to mark the passing of the Great Reform Act; and by this stage, with more and more churches having a number of bells in them, change ringing became commonplace on Sundays, at weddings, and on high days, ecclesiastically and locally.
The printed press, broadcasting and the internet have done away with the need for bells as a means of communication, and they now ring purely ceremonially; and Big Ben, not a church but the nation’s clock tower, has become its symbolic bell. How appropriate, then, that it should ring for a liberation and not, as bells once prepared to do, for an invasion from Europe.