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John Claridge At Whitechapel Bell Foundry

March 22, 2016
by the gentle author

John Claridge first visited the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1982 to photograph the life of Britain’s oldest manufacturing company, founded in 1570 – and he returned last week after-hours to take this second set of pictures published here today. Remarkably, little has changed in the intervening years.

‘When I got into the foundry all the work had finished, it was deserted,’ he told me, ‘it was like walking through a time portal or boarding the Mary Celeste. There was a very tactile feeling about the place, where craftsmanship held sway, and my pictures pay testament to that feeling.’

Below you can read my interview with Alan Hughes, fourth generation Master Bellfounder.

Photographs copyright © John Claridge

A CONVERSATION WITH ALAN HUGHES, MASTER BELLFOUNDER

If I confide that my favourite sound in all the world is that of bells pealing, you will understand why the Whitechapel Bell Foundry has become such a source of fascination over all these years. Every time I walk past the ancient foundry walls (the oldest manufacturing company in the land – founded in 1570), I wonder about the alchemical mystery of bellfounding taking place inside. One day as I passed, walking down from Spitalfields to the Thames, the steel doors at the rear were open and, peeking in from the harsh sunlight outside, I was afforded a tantalising glimpse of huge bells glinting in the gloom of the engineering shop.

So you can imagine my excitement when I received the invitation to meet the current master bellfounder in an unbroken line of master bellfounders that stretches back to 1420. Stepping inside, out of the rain in Whitechapel Rd, I found myself in the foundry reception lined with old photographs and compelling artifacts, like the wooden template (displayed over the entrance as if it were the jaws of a whale) that was used when Big Ben was manufactured here. Among all the black and white photos, my eye was drawn by some recent colour pictures of a royal visit, with Her Majesty in a vivid shade of plum and Prince Philip looking uncharacteristically animated. I was thinking that the bell foundry must work a powerful magic upon its visitors, when a figure emerged from the office and I turned to shake the hand of Alan Hughes, the master bellfounder. Alan’s great-grandfather Arthur Hughes bought the business in 1884, which makes Alan a fourth generation bellfounder.

A sense of awe filled me as I shook hands with this unassuming man in a natty blue suit but I composed myself as best I could, while he led me through a modest office where two people worked behind neat desks and one of those fake cats dozed eternally in front of the stove, to arrive in the boardroom where a long table with a red cloth upon it occupied the centre of a modest but elegantly proportioned Georgian dining room. We drew up chairs and commenced our conversation as the Whitechapel drizzle turned to dusk outside.

Alan’s fine manners and levity kept me guessing whether everything he said might actually be a proposal, as if he was simply trying out thoughts to see how I would react. I took this as an indication of courtly assurance. Alan wears his role with the greatest of ease, as only someone born into the fourth generation of an arcane profession could do, and I wondered if the royal visit might have been an occasion for mutual recognition between those born into long-standing family businesses.

Up above, I could hear music. It was Alan’s daughter and her friend, both music students, practising the piano and the trumpet. The prevailing atmosphere was that of a work place yet it was domestic too. When Alan’s predecessors set up the business on this site, before the industrial revolution, they attached the factory to the house so they could walk from the dining room into the foundry at their convenience. The feeling today is akin to that of the quiet living quarters of an old college or liturgical institution.

Alan has worked here over fifty years and, describing the changes he has seen, he glanced over my shoulder to the window several times, as if each time he glanced upon a different memory of the Whitechapel Road. The East End was a busy place in the nineteen fifties, as Alan first recalled it, not only because of the docks but because of all the factories and the manufacturing that happened here. “Whichever way it was blowing, you got this lovely smell of beer on the wind – from Trumans or Watneys or Charringtons or Courage or Whitbread…” Alan told me, explaining the locations of the breweries at each point of the compass. In the nineteen seventies and eighties, when the docks and factories closed, Alan found the place desolate, he peered from the window and there was no-one in the street. “And then things started getting trendy. Instead of closing they started opening – and now, suddenly, it’s ok to be in Whitechapel!” said Alan, clasping his hands thoughtfully on the table and looking around the room with a philosophical grin, “But this place hasn’t changed at all. I always find it vaguely amusing.”

Tentatively, I asked Alan what it meant to him, being part of this long line of bellfounders. Alan searched his mind and then said, “I don’t think about it very often. I would like to meet some of those people, Thomas Mears (master bellfounder from 1787) who would know the place today and Thomas Lester (master bellfounder from 1738) who had this part built. It would be nice to have a conversation with him. He would recognise most of it.” Then the gentle reverie was gone and Alan returned to the present moment, adding, “It’s a business,” in phlegmatic summation.

“Our business runs counter to the national economy,” he continued, “If the economy goes down and unemployment rises, we start to get busy. Last year was our busiest in thirty years, an increase of 27% on the previous year. Similarly, the nineteen twenties were very busy.” I was mystified by this equation, but Alan has a plausible theory.

“Bell projects take a long time, so churches commit to new bells when the economy is strong and then there is no turning back. We are just commencing work on a new peal of bells for St Albans after forty-three years of negotiation. That’s an example of the time scale we are working on – at least ten years between order and delivery is normal. My great-grandfather visited the church in Langley in the eighteen nineties and told them the bells needed rehanging in a new frame. They patched them. My grandfather said the same thing in the nineteen twenties. They patched them. My father told them again in the nineteen fifties and I quoted for the job in the nineteen seventies. We completed the order in 1998.”

Alan broke into a huge smile of wonderment at the nature of his world and it made me realise how important the continuity between the generations must be, so I asked him if there was pressure exerted between father and son to keep the foundry going.

“My great-grandfather never expected the business would outlive him. He had three sons and the sale of the business was arranged, but my grandfather refused to sign the contract, so the other brothers left and he took over. My grandfather ensured his sons had good jobs and even my father wasn’t convinced the business could succeed, so he studied foundry technology for four years at every foundry in the south – thinking he could work for them – but every single one of those has now closed.” Then Alan looked out the window again, gazing forward into time. “As a master bellfounder, you never retire. We go on until we die. My grandfather, my father and my uncle all died of a heart attack at eighty.”

The implications of Alan’s conclusion are startling for him personally, even though he has many years to go before eighty. “You’re a very eloquent man,” I said in sober recognition, “No, I’m not!” he retorted cheekily. “You have such interesting things to say,” I replied lamely, “No, I don’t!” he persisted gamely, obstinately raising his eyebrows. Nevertheless, Alan’s life as a bellfounder is remarkable to me and maybe to you too. Seeing his life in comparison to his predecessors, Alan embraces the patterns that prescribe his existence, for better or worse, and his personal mindset is the result of particular circumstances, the outcome of four generations of bellfounding. Alan has my greatest respect for his immodest devotion to bells.

Click here to order your copy of John Claridge’s EAST END for £25, published June 2nd

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A Book of John Claridge’s EAST END

10 Responses leave one →
  1. March 22, 2016

    How wonderful to be able to visit the foundry! Valerie

  2. March 22, 2016

    When I was in the RAF one of my buddies worked in this bell foundry prior to his call-up. He must have been an apprentice. I often wondered what this foundry was like, your big blog was just right thanks. Bell founder’s ‘promise’ to keep making your church bells they are music in our ears. In a way you are providing a public service. John

  3. March 22, 2016

    Amazing photographs – especially the bell ‘jelly moulds’!

  4. Udayan Paul permalink
    March 22, 2016

    interesting to read

  5. Helen Breen permalink
    March 22, 2016

    GA, another fascinating article. Interesting how the “bell business” runs counter to the economy.
    Great pictures too …

  6. Judith McManis permalink
    March 22, 2016

    I had the pleasure of visiting the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1998 where (along with my now-late husband) we met Alan Hughes as we ‘toured’ this amazing facility while Alan spoke to our little group about what had been going on there for so long. My early music group had just ordered a little set of Whitechapel’s Medieval Handbells. My husband, pipe organ builder, Charles McManis, had been interested in the effect of sound on the human soul all his life. Although created in decidedly different ways, the sounds of both organ pipes and bells stir something within us that is etherial at least and often deeply spiritual and holy. Whether mournful, celebratory or patriotic, if bells could tell their own stories (and many have information cast right into them), the history, ambitions and dreams of nations becomes palpable. It’s worth the effort to climb up into bell-towers to read about it! Thanks so much for the article. I’m a new subscriber to the blog and always look forward to what’s coming next!

  7. pauline taylor permalink
    March 22, 2016

    I enjoyed reading about this man and his business, he sounds modest, and I like that. Long may it all continue.

  8. March 22, 2016

    You can still tour the Whitechapel Bell Foundry today, but you need to book in advance. I worked near it a couple of years ago for over two years and visited it in March 2014. http://jenikya.com/blog/2014/04/whitechapel-bell-foundry.html

  9. March 23, 2016

    Fascinating post… Wonderful photos! Have always loved the sound of churchbells and other tower bells. Such a long lineage of the art and business of bell-making at Whitechapel Bell Foundry… Very interesting to hear Mr. Hughes’ observations of how things have changed, in the East End, and within his chosen field. Also somehow reaasuring that certain aspects, such as the incredibly extended trajectory of bell projects, along with, no doubt, the irrefutable quality of his creations, remain. Would love to visit this foundary, and shall check on it, in hopes of just that, this summer. Thanks again. Love your work : )

  10. March 27, 2016

    Yes i visited the Foundry in 1999 to see our new bells being cast. These were being made to replace some older bells c1893 that were too heavy for our tower (they have gone to Grace Church s.Caroline USA.
    Our bells are very good and are easy to ring.

    Many thanks from Whitechapel foundry .

    the website is our Church one

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