1683 Bell For Cashmere

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31060, 16 May 1966, Page 12

1683 Bell For Cashmere

(From the London correspondent of “The Press”) LONDON, May 9. At least one seventeenth - century bell may ring out in a peal in Christchurch, New Zealand, although thieves have stolen three of four bells awaiting shipment from a London bell foundry’s store. This is the wish of Mr Michael StewartSmith, who organised the gift of the bells to St Augustine’s Anglican Church, Cashmere,

Police believe that the bells, presumably stolen for the copper and tin content of their metal, will be melted down. Each weighed more than 4cwt, and were taken in a total haul of nine bells from the foundry. “We could cast another three to match the remaining bell,” said Mr Stewart-Smith, now a businessman in Christchurch, “if the necessary funds can be raised." For him the robbery is a great personal disappointment. He discovered the bells, cast in 1683 and rung in the centre of Cambridge for a time, lying unused in St. Michael and All Angels’

Church at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. This was 10 years ago, and authorities agreed they eould be sent to New Zealand.

It was decided to keep the bells in England until the Christchurch church was rebuilt, with a special frame in its tower to house them. They were in storage with the Whitechapel Bell Foun-

dry, maker of Big Ben, and said to be the oldest company in the world, with records going back to 1570 and known to be in existence well before that time. They were to be returned before going to New Zealand.

The photograph shows a storeman at the foundry with the lone survivor of the peal.