PREMIER WOMAN BELLRINGER

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10207, 18 February 1919, Page 3

PREMIER WOMAN BELLRINGER

The belfry freedom which the change ringers have had returned to them by the Armistice was celebrated at a joint meeting of members of the .London County and Surrey Associations of Change Ringers. They visited Croydon at tho invitation of Lieutenant C. F. Johnson, head of Messrs Tillett and Johnson, who gave up bell founding and clock making when war broke out to make munitions, and are now returning ‘to their original industry. . . Among tho company were ringers from St. Hotolph's, Bishopsgate, who claim to have been '-.lie first in London to ring in the Armistice, and Miss Barker, the premier woman ringer of England. The ringers during the afternoon rang out merry "emancipation .peals" at the Parish Church and at St. Peter’s Church. Miss Parker, whoso father is tho master 'pf tho Edmonton band of ringers, told a London "Weekly Dispatch” representative she learnt bell-ringing from him. and that for over ten years it had been her hobby. "I have travelled all overv the country as secretary of the Ladies’. Guild of Change Ringers,” she added, "ond have earned my title of premier woman ringer of England, because I hare rung more methods than any other woman "I should think I haye taught twenty women during the war, and most of them have taken the place of men bellringers who were called tie.*