Carillon Profile: The Riverside Church, New York City

Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

The University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Memorial Chapel houses one of the crown jewels of carillons worldwide—the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon. The 72-bell instrument is a sister to the other carillon donated by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.—the carillon in The Riverside Church in New York City. Both carillons were cast by Gillett & Johnston of Croydon, England, and they are the two largest carillons in the world by weight, with Chicago’s carillon second heaviest at over 100 tons. The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon was cast over a three-year period and installed in 1932. The university proudly celebrates the 90th anniversary of the carillon’s installation by hosting the annual congress of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America in June 2022 (gcna.org).

The carillon’s mechanics and design bear some hallmarks of Gillett & Johnston’s style while also incorporating contemporary features. The bells possess a rich, full tone because of their fine craftsmanship and extra-large profile, true to the Gillett & Johnston tradition. The large range of the keyboard was of the foundry’s own design, similar to that of their instrument in New York, before unifying keyboard standards were adopted by carillon guilds. The keyboard transposes down four semitones, intensifying the bells’ low register and long resonance. The largest nine bells of the carillon were connected to an electro-pneumatic mechanical system to ring the time in 15-minute increments and to ring the six largest bells via an electric switchbox mounted directly on the carillon keyboard.

In 2005, members of the university administration solicited gifts from alumni to fund an organ and carillon renovation on the occasion of University President Don Michael Randel’s retirement and 65th birthday. Through these generous donations, Eijsbouts of the Netherlands was able to execute a full-scale renovation in 2007 and 2008. The transmission system was updated from a roller bar to directed crank, and the bells were repositioned on a new frame to allow for better sound transmission from the belfry to the ground. All clappers were replaced. The original playing cabin was dismantled, rebuilt, and repositioned within the tower, allowing for better sound transmission and playability from the keyboard. The original keyboard frame was retained but outfitted with an updated World Carillon Federation keyboard design. The electro-pneumatic mechanical system was decoupled from the carillon transmission system in the bass bells, making them more playable for the carillonist. The highest 46 bells were slightly retuned to offset the effects of corrosion over the decades. All in all, the carillon became more consonant, resonant, playable, and easier to hear for audiences.

The original Gillett & Johnston practice keyboard is currently being restored by the B. A. Sunderlin Bellfoundry of Ruther Glen, Virginia. The foundry cast new tone bars and rebuilt the transmission for the full six-octave keyboard. The project is expected to be completed in time for the GCNA Congress in June.

Joey Brink, a member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2015, has been university carillonist since September of that year, although he will be stepping down in September 2022 (see page 3). An active student carillon guild involves undergraduate, graduate, and professional students in carillon instruction and activities. About twenty students per year enroll in weekly carillon lessons led by Brink, and they assist in playing daily recitals and leading tower tours.

The carillon is played each day, 12:00–1:00 p.m. and 5:00–6:00 p.m., during the academic quarters. Recitals are performed by Brink and students of the carillon guild. The Sunday noon concert, following the chapel service, is programmed and performed by Brink or other local professionals. The carillon is also played for special occasions in the Rockefeller Chapel, including weddings, funerals, and university convocations.

—Kimberly Schafer, PhD

Carillonist and campanologist

Chicago, Illinois

Carillon website: rockefeller.uchicago.edu/the-carillon

Kimberly Schafer, founder and partner of Community Bell Advocates, LLC, is a bell performer, researcher, and advocate. She has performed on the carillon since a college student, in recital across the United States and Europe.

Schafer studied bell instruments as part of her musicological dissertation research at the University of Texas at Austin and serves as the editor-in-chief of the Bulletin, the journal of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America (gcna.org). She advises institutions on the repair, installation, performance, and programming of tower bells and bell instruments in North America and coordinates events to promote them.

The Netherlands Carillon monument, located in Arlington, Virginia, next to the Arlington National Cemetery and Iwo Jima Memorial, was a gift from the Netherlands to the United States in gratitude for their liberation during World War II and Marshall Plan aid. A Dutch press officer, Govert Verheul, had dreamed up the idea of giving the United States a carillon at a time when the administration was searching for an appropriate present for their generous benefactor. The subsequent “Bells for America” committee solicited donations from Dutch people, provinces, businesses, and organizations for the carillon. Queen Juliana announced the gift to the United States on her state visit to the country in 1952. While the bells were cast only one year later, the carillon would not be installed and dedicated until 1960.

The carillon and tower were designed to showcase Dutch culture and society. The instrument was provisioned with forty-nine bells cast by three different Dutch bell foundries: Eijsbouts, Petit & Fritsen, and Van Bergen. The bells were exquisitely inscribed and decorated to represent varying divisions of Dutch society. The lowest were dedicated to Dutch territories, the middle to professions and professional organizations, and the highest to the youth. Eugenia van den Grinten-Lücker, Louis Meijs, and Gerard van Remmen designed the bell ornamentation. The rhyming couplets centered on Dutch life and aspirations were composed by poet Ben van Eysselsteijn. The modernist tower was designed by Joost W. C. Boks and is bordered by Dutch royal lions by Paul Koning and forty-nine tulip beds to match the number of bells.

The carillon project was delayed and marked with problems from the beginning. Dutch carillonist Ferdinand Timmermans and Belgian Kamiel Lefévere performed for the official presentation of the carillon to the United States on May 5, 1954, Liberation Day for the Netherlands. The carillon was housed in a temporary structure in West Potomac Park until its relocation in its permanent tower in 1960. By that time, the United States had its own growing carillon culture, so Charles T. Chapman, the carillonist of the Luray Singing Tower memorial carillon, Luray, Virginia, inaugurated the instrument during its formal dedication on May 5, 1960.

In 1963, Frank Law, also carillonist at the Valley Forge Carillon, became the first director carillonneur of the instrument and tirelessly advocated for its performance and care. By 1970, though, the carillon had already fallen into disrepair. Thanks to Law’s advocacy and publicity from The Washington Post, the National Park Service allocated the necessary funds to screen off the open belfry from birds, refurbish the transmission system, and replace the keyboard.

A full renovation did not happen until 1994–1995, which was conducted by Eijsbouts. Two Dutch businessmen, Berend Boks, son of the tower’s architect, and Kersen de Jong, spearheaded the fundraising campaign that gathered donations from Dutch businesses and the government. One of the primary aims was to re-tune the smallest thirty-six bells to sound more concordantly together, since the three bell foundries did not produce bells of the same casting and tuning quality. Other improvements in the renovation included yet another new keyboard aligned with the North American keyboard standard, new transmission system, new clappers, and a new automatic playing mechanism controlled by a computer, replacing the obsolete tape-playing mechanism.

In 1995, the year of the fiftieth anniversary of Dutch liberation, Prime Minister Wim Kok presented a fiftieth carillon bell to President Bill Clinton. The newest Eijsbouts bell was now the smallest, and it featured two lions to represent the Netherlands and a bald eagle for the United States, along with the message of “Freedom / Friendship.” The newly expanded and renovated instrument was inaugurated by Washington, D.C., carillonist Edward Nassor and Dutch carillonist Jacques Maassen on May 5, 1995. Nassor, Law’s student, had become the director carillonneur after Law’s death in 1985. The liberation commemoration and celebration was a lavish two-day affair, including a ceremony honoring fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery, the performance of the musical Bells of Freedom composed for the occasion, and a dinner and dance for over 1,000 Dutch businessmen and American veterans and diplomats.

In 2010, the tower was closed to visitors due to safety issues. Water damage had noticeably corroded bolts and the exterior paint, raising concerns about the tower’s structural integrity. By 2015, the automatic-playing mechanism had broken, ceasing the daily noon and 6:00 p.m. playings. Because of these issues and the upcoming seventy-fifth anniversary of the Dutch liberation, an international fundraising team comprising both governments, the Netherlands-America Foundation, and corporate donors raised funds for the latest renovation to the tower and carillon.

The work began in October 2019, when all fifty bells were removed and returned to the Eijsbouts bell foundry in the Netherlands for another round of re-tuning. Three new bells were added, one low and two high, and the bells have been re-keyed at concert pitch, rather than transposing down a minor third. The range extends down to a low G, making the instrument an American grand carillon, and thus continuing the Dutch tradition of expanding and upkeeping their gift according to the prevailing standards. Other improvements include a World Carillon standard keyboard, new clappers, updated automatic-playing mechanism, and new playing cabin. The three new bells were dedicated to extraordinary Americans in the twentieth century: General and Secretary of State George Marshall, Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and First Lady and activist Eleanor Roosevelt. The three new bells were exhibited in Washington, D.C., in May 2021, and the entire carillon was reinstalled in June 2021. The project had been delayed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The tower will undergo repairs until autumn 2021, when an inauguration recital is scheduled. Edward Nassor continues as the director carillonneur of the Netherlands Carillon and will lead the regular concert schedule.

The author consulted three sources for this profile: Tiffany Ng’s doctoral dissertation, “The Heritage of the Future: Historical Keyboards, Technology, and Modernism” (2015); Diederik Oostdijk, Bells for America: The Cold War, Modernism, and the Netherlands Carillon in Arlington (2019); Edward Nassor, “A Culture Inscribed: Inscriptions and Reliefs on the Bells of the Netherlands Carillon, USA,” The Bulletin of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America 70 (2021).

The Cohasset Carillon at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church has shared its historical charm and magical bell sounds with the seaside town of Cohasset, Massachusetts, for nearly a century. The 57-bell, concert-pitch carillon currently boasts the most bells of any carillon in the New England area, with a G bourdon weighing in at 11,280 pounds. Past carillon players include Kamiel Lefévere, Edward “Ned” Gammons, Katherine Stevens [Mrs. E. L. Stevens], George Faxon, Earl Chamberlain, Sally Slade Warner, and Mary J. Kennedy. In addition to being well-known among many of the town’s residents who grow up hearing the bells and visiting the tower, the Cohasset carillon is well-regarded among carillonists for its smooth keyboard action and its “playability.”

Local philanthropist Jane W. W. Bancroft was the original impetus behind the Cohasset carillon. In honor of her late mother (a former St. Stephen’s congregant, Mrs. Jessie M. Barron), Jane donated the set of 23 Gillett & Johnston carillon bells installed in 1924 that formed the carillon. Later, Jane Bancroft continued to expand the instrument by ordering more bells from Gillett & Johnston: an extra 20 bells in 1925 and another eight in 1928. By 1928, the Cohasset carillon’s 51 bells gave it a larger range than many other carillons of the time.

Prominent carillon enthusiast and author William Gorham Rice penned an essay for Cohasset’s 1925 carillon concert program booklet in which he referred to Cohasset as the most beautiful carillon tower in the United States, writing that “through all years to come, [the Cohasset carillon’s] music not only will awaken truest community spirit, but will ever recall a daughter’s loving devotion to her mother’s memory.”

Inspired by Jef Denyn’s popular carillon concerts in Mechelen, Belgium, Jane Bancroft and her husband Hugh provided support for prominent players from around the world to travel to Cohasset and give summer carillon recitals on their impressive new instrument. In the 1920s and 1930s, these summer recitals drew celebrities such as then-President Calvin Coolidge and crowds numbering in the thousands. Reportedly, extra trains from Boston and the surrounding area were required to accommodate the eager concertgoers. Jane’s forward-thinking daughters, Jessie Bancroft Cox and Jane Bancroft Cook, continued their mother’s legacy of advocating for the Cohasset carillon by endowing the summer recital series. This support ensured that the series continued through economic downturns and up to the present; Cohasset’s summer carillon recital series remains the longest running in North America. The carillon’s multigenerational support from the Bancroft family, particularly the Bancroft women, is immortalized through inscriptions of their names on several bells.

In 1989 and 1990, the Cohasset carillon underwent a substantial renovation and expansion project by the John Taylor Bell Foundry, Loughborough, England. Along with the addition of six new Taylor bells, which expanded the carillon’s range to 57, several dozen of the original Gillett & Johnston treble bells were removed, replaced with Taylor bells, and dispersed around the country. Ten of these Gillett & Johnston bells now ring out over Ann Arbor, Michigan, as part of the Kerrytown Chime.

In addition to the summer concert series, the Cohasset carillon is played regularly on Sundays by its current carillonneur John Whiteside and by local guest carillonists. St. Stephen’s Church is the 2023 Guild of Carillonneurs in North America congress host, and the June program will highlight the achievements and music of one of the Cohasset carillon’s most influential carillonneurs, Sally Slade Warner.

—Simone Browne

Independent carillonist

New York, New York

For additional information about the Bancroft women and their impact on the Cohasset Carillon, see “Jane W. W. Bancroft, Jessie Bancroft Cox & Jane Bancroft Cook,” A Century of Women and the Carillon, www.CarillonWomen.org.

Carillon website: ststephenscohasset.org/The-Carillon

Beaumont Memorial Tower

Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan

The Michigan State University’s Beaumont Memorial Tower in East Lansing is centrally located on campus in an open, wooded park ideal for carillon concerts. Apart from its beautiful natural setting, Beaumont Memorial Tower is distinguished as the first recipient of a Michigan Historical Marker in 1955 on the occasion of the centennial celebration of the university. Alumnus John W. Beaumont and his wife Alice donated the funds for the tower and chime as a monument to the college’s mission and achievements.

The tower was designed in the neo-Gothic style by the architectural firm of Donaldson and Meier of Detroit and built in 1929. The current carillon of Beaumont Memorial Tower started as a ten-bell chime cast by Gillett & Johnston of Croydon, England, in 1928 and installed in 1929. The chime was performed manually from a baton keyboard, and the bells were automated to ring the quarter-hour and hour. Shortly after its installation, three more bells were ordered from Gillett & Johnston and installed in 1930, so that the college’s Alma Mater, “Close by the Winding Cedar,” could be performed with the available pitches.

The chime underwent multiple expansions and improvements until it became the world-class carillon it is today. Russell Daubert, the first chimer, advocated for the expansion of the instrument to a carillon, and in 1935 ten more bells were added—bringing the total number of bells to 23. In the late 1940s, due to the advocacy of new carillonist Wendell Westcott, 14 more bells were added in 1950, bringing the total to 37, but these treble bells were cast by the Dutch firm Petit & Fritsen. The Michigan State College Fund solicited for ten more bells shortly thereafter, and six treble bells were installed in 1952, while four bass bells were installed in 1959. The new trebles were cast by Petit & Fritsen, while the four bass bells were cast by Gillett & Johnston. By this time, the carillon consisted of 47 bells at a concert size of four octaves.

By the early 1970s, the instrument had fallen into disrepair, and in 1986 the bells were disconnected from the keyboard and automatic playing mechanism. The university hired the Royal Eijsbouts Bell Foundry of the Netherlands restore the clock mechanism, automate the lowest 27 bells, install a new central transmission system with directed cranks, replace the 20 Petit & Fritsen bells, and add two more bells. The replacement treble bells rectified the tuning discrepancy between the bells cast by two firms. Margo Halsted, the University of Michigan carillonneur, was a strong supporter of the carillon’s renovation and was the formal consultant on the project. After this last renovation was completed, the carillon consisted of 49 bells. The bells are pitched from C3 to D7, absent two bass notes, although they transpose up one whole step from their keyboard position (lowest bell keyed at B-flat).

Margo Halsted served as the visiting university carillonneur from 1996 to 1997, at which time her student Ray McLellan was appointed to the position of university carillonneur. He served in this position until his untimely passing in April 2021. The university carillonist of Grand Valley State University, Julianne Vanden Wyngaard, served as the interim carillonist, and Jonathan Lehrer started as the new university carillonist in August 2022. Other regular performers include Rachel Drobnak, Laurie Harkema, Sally Harwood, and Bill McHarris.

When classes are in session, the carillon is played at noon most days of the week and for special events. Lehrer will continue the carillon performance studio started by his predecessor. The Muelder Summer Carillon Recital series occurs on five to six consecutive Wednesdays in July and August at 6:00 p.m., started in 1996 through the generosity of faculty member and administrator Milton Muelder.

—Kimberly Schafer, PhD, Carillonist and campanologist, Chicago, Illinois

Carillon website: music.msu.edu/carillon/history-of-beaumont-tower-and-the-carillon

Brian Swager, DM, is an organist, carillonneur, and harpist in San Francisco, California. He is director of music at Immanuel Lutheran Church in San Jose. He serves as contributing editor for carillon topics to The Diapason.

The Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London, England, is a cultural heritage asset of international significance. However, it is at grave risk of being renovated into a “bell-themed” boutique hotel and café rather than being retained as a fully working bell foundry on the site that was developed for this purpose in the 1740s. If this is allowed to happen, the bell founding skills on this historic site in the East End of London will be lost to the nation forever, bringing an end to a continuous history of bell casting covering the last 450 years. This is a matter of national and international importance.

For the last few years I have read reports of the imminent closure of the firm. However, a Public Inquiry called by the Secretary of State has been scheduled for October 2020, offering real hope of saving the foundry. The UK Historic Building Preservation Trust—whose founding patron was HRH The Prince of Wales and is now called Re-Form Heritage—launched a joint appeal with the Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation to save the foundry. The many objectors, of which there were nearly 26,000, believe strongly that the site of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry should be a place of pilgrimage, preserving this important heritage. I contacted Adam Lowe, director of the Factum Foundation, who has supplied much of the information for this article. 

Whitechapel bells hold an enviable place in English history. The first recorded bells to have been cast in London were made in Whitechapel in the thirteenth century; bells have been made by the foundry since 1570, and on the current site on the corner of Whitechapel Road and Plumber’s Row since the 1740s. The Whitechapel Bell Foundry adopted its current name in 1968, but the same purpose-built foundry has been occupied by generations of bell makers—Phelps and Lester, Lester and Pack, Pack and Chapman, Chapman and Mears, Mears and Stainbank, Alfred Lawson, and since 1904 several generations of the Hughes family—with knowledge passing from one generation to the next, each of them forming a part of this extraordinary history.

Located in the Borough of Tower Hamlets in the heart of London, the renowned foundry is Britain’s oldest single-purpose industrial building. The bells cast here are the voices of nations: they mark the world’s celebrations and sorrows, representing principles of emancipation, freedom of expression, and justice. Both Big Ben and the Liberty Bell were cast on this site. 

In June 2017, the historic Whitechapel Foundry was sold to a developer, and the use of these Grade 2* buildings for the making of bells ceased. Grade 2* is a classification of a UK building that is “particularly important . . . of more than special interest.” Although the foundry had been listed for its historic connection to the East End’s industrial past and despite campaigns in the national press and emotional public outcry, it was shut down by the owners who wanted to take advantage of the enormous increase in its financial value by selling it for conversion into a hotel.

Raycliff, an American venture capitalist firm, purchased the foundry. Raycliff Whitechapel LLP has submitted a planning application that seeks to secure a change of use and development of the site as a 100-bed hotel, private members’ club, restaurant, bar, café, and shop, with desk-sharing workspaces for hire. The on-site foundry outlined in the Raycliff Whitechapel proposal has been reduced dramatically, and all that remains is a token activity—a small display workshop and studio for casting or finishing handbells within a restaurant and café.

In November 2019, the Tower Hamlets Development Committee approved the developer’s planning application. In December of last year, in response to public pressure, the Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, issued a holding declaration preventing Tower Hamlets Council from proceeding and granting planning permission. The planning application has now been “called in,” and a public inquiry will be held on October 6, 2020, lasting for about one week. This gives the opportunity for a fair and proper hearing with legal representation.

A foundry of worldwide stature

The foundry in Whitechapel has supplied a striking array of bells to churches around the globe as well as a number of significant and well-known installations. In addition to the Liberty Bell and Big Ben, the foundry has produced several other bells of national significance. Near the White House, in the Old Post Office and Clock Tower in Washington, D.C., is a ring of ten pealing bells, used for change ringing, called “The Bells of Congress.” Cast by Whitechapel in 1976, the bells range in weight from 581 to 2,953 pounds. Another Whitechapel ring of ten bells hangs in the tower of the Washington National Cathedral. Cast by Mears & Stainbank in 1962, the bells range from 608 to 3,588 pounds.

Commissioned and cast for the 2012 London Olympic Games, the Olympic Bell is the largest harmonically-tuned bell in the world. It was designed by Whitechapel, but due to its excessive size (22.91 tons, 10.95 feet in diameter), it was cast at the Royal Eijsbouts foundry in the Netherlands. It bears an inscription taken from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest: “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises.”

In celebration of the 1976 United States Bicentennial, the people of Britain gifted the people of this country with a 12,446-pound Bicentennial Bell cast by Whitechapel. It was dedicated by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II who shared her gratitude to America’s Founding Fathers for teaching the British “to respect the right of others to govern themselves in their own way.”

Various chimes and rings made in Whitechapel were sent to places near and far beyond England’s borders including Wales, Scotland, Zimbabwe, South Africa, India, Trinidad, Malawi, Sudan, and Jamaica. No less than twenty-three sets of Whitechapel bells made their way to Canada, forty-four to Australia, four to New Zealand, and at least sixty-two sets to the United States. Several of their chimes were later enlarged to carillons. Fifty-eight of the seventy-four bells in the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon in the Riverside Church in New York City were recast or replaced by Whitechapel in 2003. It is no wonder that their website proclaimed: “the world’s most famous bell foundry.”

The business owner Alan Hughes cited financial difficulties with maintenance of the building in the current economic climate. “The future of bell making is bright” maintains Adam Lowe of the Factum Foundation. He notes that churches are no longer the main commissioners of bells, yet the market is diversifying, and new opportunities exist around the world. Likewise, technological advances must be applied that would bring the foundry into the twenty-first century.  

A viable future for the foundry

Re-Form Heritage and the Factum Foundation have led the opposition to the redevelopment plans. Together with the local community, former employees of the bell foundry, the Victoria and Albert Museum, B-Made (Bartlett Manufacturing & Design Exchange—a multidisciplinary center that aims to foster the next generation of thinkers, designers, and makers), University College London, the East London Mosque, artists, and others, they are proposing a viable future answering local and international needs: a working foundry specializing in the production of bells and works of art, together with a 3-D and acoustic archive and research center that will conduct bell recording, undertake research into historic casting methods, and develop machine learning predictive software to assist in the preservation of bells around the country and beyond.

There is a clear need for such services. Maintaining and re-making bells for churches is a relatively contained market in Europe and North America, but it serves an important social and preservation function. By contrast, there is a significant market for commemorative bells of all sizes and for bell-related artist projects. Internationally, Russia, Africa, and South America have been identified as expanding markets for church bells, while China and India have a large and growing demand for bells and gongs.

Technology has the potential to revitalize bell making in Whitechapel. Three-dimensional recording, digital modeling, machine learning analysis, and the use of software to predict and control shrinkage, flow, thickness, and shape are all part of this future. The new foundry will also be eco-friendly, filtering emissions and recycling heat. As has been demonstrated by Peter Scully, there are no issues with casting bells safely in London in a workshop that meets health and safety and the most challenging sustainability legislation: in December 2019, Scully and assistants at B-Made cast three bells in front of a group of journalists and supporters using ceramic shell investment molding and a new efficient electric kiln; the result was an unmitigated success.

Historical research leading to technological advances

The scene of bell making in Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece film Andrei Rublev depicts a human skill that has been passed down in Europe, almost unchanged, from generation to generation since the Middle Ages. In China its history is much longer, going back to around 2000 BCE. There is a profound need to document this history and to preserve and archive the achievements of this proud technological tradition within the UK and beyond. To this end, the partnership between Re-Form Heritage and the Factum Foundation will conduct extensive research into historic bronze casting technologies and will establish an archive focused on the history of bell founding, to include acoustic recordings and high-resolution 3-D models in addition to more traditional modes of documentation. This research and the accompanying archive will form a key resource as the revitalized bell foundry works on the preservation, monitoring, and analysis of historic bells.

Historical documentation will also inform research into the production of new bells. In February 2020, an early seventeenth-century church bell from near Salamanca, Spain, was 3-D recorded by a team of experts from Factum Foundation. The technique used was photogrammetry, which involves taking multiple photos of an object (often hundreds or even thousands) that can then be converted into a 3-D digital model using software. The Salamanca recording and others like it will form the basis of an archive of photogrammetric recordings of different bells, facilitating a study of the relationship between the composition of bell metal, shape, and sound. Building on this information, it will soon be possible for bell making to enter a new phase, in which mathematical modeling and new methods of precision fabrication are combined with the knowledge and experience of traditional bell founders.

Following the 3-D recording of the bell, a research project is now underway to carry out data processing using MagmaSoft, an advanced software that can predict flow and shrinkage. Once the analysis has been carried out, the data will be distorted. A 3-D print will be made so that after molding and casting, the bell will be the exact shape and size of the original bell. The casting is being done at Pangolin Foundry in Gloucestershire using a mix of bell metal with a high tin content. Arthur Prior is undertaking the digital analysis of the data in Nuremberg, and Nigel Taylor is advising on the production of the alloy, the temperature of the casting, and the speed of cooling. It is hoped that the new version of the Salamanca bell will sound similar to the original, even before fine tuning.

A further digitization project that has shown the possibilities of digital recording of bells is the scanning of the so-called “Cellini Bell.” This 13-centimeter-high silver bell was made ca. 1550 by the Nuremberg goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer, although for a long time it was attributed to the Italian Renaissance master Benvenuto Cellini. Once an important item in Horace Walpole’s collection at Strawberry Hill House, it now forms part of the Rothschild Bequest at the British Museum. The bell is covered with intricate relief-work that includes flowers, lizards, and insects, many of which were cast directly from life.

The Cellini Bell was recorded by Factum Foundation using close-range photogrammetry, a task that posed particular challenges specific to this complex object. The level of detail on the bell meant that it required many photographs, taken with a great degree of precision, and in order to accurately record the partially reflective surface of the silver, it was necessary to conduct the recording twice, once using the standard lenses employed by Factum for photogrammetry of this sort, and once employing cross-polarization to reduce the glare from the object. The two models were then combined, resulting in a 3-D model with 91.5 million polygons. This was then 3-D printed and silver plated, resulting in an exact facsimile that is now on permanent display at Strawberry Hill House.

It was during the process of recording the Cellini Bell in 2018, while Factum Foundation was also working to save the bell foundry at Whitechapel, that the role of machine-learning software and new casting technologies for the production of bells became apparent. This was then put to the test in December 2019 at B-Made in Here East, a media complex located in the Olympic Park in East London, not far from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.

The proposed Elizabeth bell

Many of the great moments in England’s history since 1570 have been celebrated by the tolling of bells founded at Whitechapel. The coalition proposes that the nation should now celebrate the reign of Elizabeth II, their longest serving monarch, with the founding of a bell. Once the London bell foundry has been established as a trust and has reacquired the foundry at Whitechapel, the first commission the trust hopes to carry out is the founding of the Elizabeth Bell, a new quarter bell for the Elizabeth Tower at the Palace of Westminster, of which Big Ben is the great bell. The bell will be funded by public donations and will require the support of the royal family and the government.

A viable future

The coalition proposal is supported by the local community, the East London Mosque, politicians at local and national levels, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Bartlett School of Architecture; by heritage bodies including the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), Spitalfields Trust, and SAVE Britain’s Heritage; by the blog Spitalfields Life (which has published extensively on the history of the foundry and on this campaign), by architectural historian Dan Cruickshank, former Royal Academy Chief Executive Charles Saumarez Smith, academics, makers, musicians, and artists including Michael Nyman, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, and Grayson Perry. While this is a local issue it has global implications, and there have been offers of support from China, Australia, and the United States. Mainstream and social media have shown a huge interest, and articles have appeared in Financial Times, The Daily Mail, Evening Standard, The Guardian, and The Economist, among other publications.

Speaking of his enthusiasm for the Re-Form/Factum proposals, former Tory leadership candidate and mayoral candidate Rory Stewart said: 

All of this, in one of the most interesting parts of our city . . . . An imaginative planner—in fact anyone with any imagination seeing the possibilities here—could not possibly turn this down. This is a challenge of courage, it’s a challenge of joyful imagination.

About Factum Foundation

Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation is a not-for-profit organization founded in Madrid to document, monitor, study, recreate, and disseminate the world’s cultural heritage. It works alongside its sister company, Factum Arte, a multi-disciplinary workshop dedicated to digital mediation and physical transformation in contemporary art, and the materialization of diverse types of object. Activities include building digital archives for preservation and further study, creating and organizing touring exhibitions, setting up training centers to enable colleagues across the world to record their own cultural heritage, and producing exact facsimiles as part of a new approach to conservation, restoration, and display. Factum Arte works with foundries in Spain, England, and Greece, casting many alloys and developing innovative connections between digital input and physical output.

Call to action

For those interested in supporting this initiative, Adam Lowe suggests a number of ways to be of assistance.

Visit and share the Save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry website with others: savethewhitechapelbellfoundry.com. Here you can sign a petition to register support. By clicking on “Donate,” one will be redirected to Re-Form’s website where it is possible to make a donation in any amount, if desired.

Further information is available on “Spitalfield’s life,” the blog devoted to life in the East End: spitalfieldslife.com

Visit Factum Foundation’s online page and see the development of the fight to keep the site as a working bell foundry: factumfoundation.org/ind/180/the-resurrection-of-the-whitechapel-bell-foundry.

We are also looking for people in historic and preservation societies who are interested in learning how new technology can help create an archive of various types of information that will help revitalize interest in bells, their production, and their digital and physical restoration. Support is needed to build a network that will allow these noble objects to be valued and appreciated. Write to: [email protected].

Carillon Profile: Walter F. Tilton Memorial Carillon, Norwood, Massachusetts

The Walter F. Tilton Memorial Carillon in the town of Norwood, Massachusetts, is being restored, carrying on its iconic status in the community. The entire transmission system, from the keyboard wires to the clappers, was replaced to create a more modern, playable instrument. The updated design retained the legacy roller-bar system and the original keyboard, although the keyboard was reconditioned and outfitted with modern parts. The steel bell frame had rusted due to decades of exposure, so it was treated and repainted to withstand many more decades. The B. A. Sunderlin Bell Foundry of Ruther Glen, Virginia, is carrying out the carillon work and will finish the project this spring.

Notable figures in the North American carillon community and local community have stewarded the instrument for decades. The late Sally Slade Warner, renowned for her deft arrangements and moving performances, played on the instrument for decades until her retirement in the early 2000s. Slade Warner performed repairs and renovation work herself in the 1980s to make the instrument more playable. Bernie Cooper, assistant town manager, was also critical in taking care of the instrument. He worked with Slade Warner to bring the instrument back into better working order, and he ensured financial support for the carillon until his untimely passing in January 2021. He and Slade Warner started the annual summer carillon concert series in the 1980s.

Another notable figure is Lee Leach, a current carillonist. Leach had noticed the extensive rust on the bell frame and the difficult playability as early as the 1990s, when he had first learned to play the instrument. When the state of Massachusetts passed new legislation that made local taxes and state appropriations available to communities to fund preservation projects, Leach and Cooper set to work and applied for a grant from the Community Preservation Act to fund the carillon’s restoration, which was approved by the local committee and then awarded by the state.

The Walter F. Tilton Memorial Carillon is one of the few municipal carillons in North America. The funds for the instrument were donated by local leader Walter F. Tilton to recognize all the Norwood residents who had fought in past wars. The fifty-bell instrument was cast and installed by Gillett & Johnston of England and dedicated on November 11, 1928, the tenth anniversary of Armistice Day. The carillon is located within Norwood’s Memorial Town Hall and is managed by the municipality. Three of the bells were replaced since the carillon’s inception, but otherwise no major work was done until now.

The carillon will continue in its summer carillon concert series in 2022, inviting guest recitalists from near and far. The traditional informal ring by local carillonists will take place on the afternoon of the Fourth of July. These musicians will play on occasion, including Margaret Angelini, Anton Fleissner, Jennifer Herrmann, Lee Leach, Thomas Lee, Christina Meyer, Margaret Pan, and John Whiteside. The anticipated date for its first recital is May 22, 2022, when Norwood will honor its veterans as part of its 150th-anniversary celebration of its founding.

—Kimberly Schafer, PhD, Carillonist and campanologist, Chicago, Illinois

All photos credit: Lee Leach