Now! Then! The Archbishop of York calls in the Lords for the wartime ban on ringing church bells to be lifted or modified

31 March 1943: The Archbishop of York calls in the Lords for the wartime ban on ringing church bells to be lifted or modified

House of Lords. 1943/03/31. Ringing Of Church Bells. Hansard, Vol. 126. London: UK Parliament. Licensed under Open Parliament Licence, without modification. Get it:

Excerpt

For nearly three years 12,000 parishes have had their bells silenced, in case in one of these parishes there might come from the air a certain number of Germans. There have been three exceptions. On one occasion certain bells were rung by mistake; the bells were rung to celebrate the victory in Egypt; and they were rung again last Christmas. But with these exceptions, for nearly three years no bells have been rung to summon the people to worship, no bells have been pealed at weddings, no bells have been tolled for the dead, no bell has been rung at the induction of a new incumbent, no bells have been rung from college chapels. All over the country there has come a silence to our bells. There are, of course, some people who hate bells and they will regard the silence of the bells as one of the only alleviating compensations of the war. But the great majority of people deplore the silence of the bells. We who are members of the Church of England regret most deeply that our bells are not allowed to be used in the traditional way to summon people to worship. It is, however, not only members of the Church of England. There are large numbers of people who are not greatly interested in church matters who miss the bells, and that is specially so in the country districts. Psychologically I am quite certain this silence of the bells has a very bad effect on the people.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Harold Alexander was Commander-in-Chief, Middle East, overseeing Montgomery at the 2nd Battle of El Alamein:

After Alexander advised Churchill to “Ring out the bells” to celebrate victory in Egypt, Churchill told a Lord Mayor’s luncheon at Mansion House: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

When were the bells rung mistakenly?

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Original

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
moved to resolve, That the ban on the ringing of church bells should be now lifted or modified. The most reverend Prelate said: My Lords, in moving this Resolution I want to make it quite clear at the very outset that I am not moving it on the ground that all danger, either of invasion from the sea or from the air, has passed away. When a wild animal is wounded it is then most dangerous, and of course it is quite possible that in the months to come every kind of attack will be made upon this island. My reasons for moving this Resolution are different. I am moving it because I wish to submit to your Lordships that in a large number of cases the ringing of the church bells would give no kind of useful warning, that in other cases where the bells might be useful in that way they could be rung without interfering with the ordinary ringing of the bells, and that therefore it is both unreasonable and unnecessary to silence bells which for centuries have been so closely associated both with the religion and life of the country.

I would remind your Lordships that when this edict about ringing the bells came into force it was at a time of great strain. We had evacuated from Dunkirk where we had lost an enormous amount of equipment. It was possible that at any moment the French might cease fighting. I think an historian when he looks back on that period will pick out the utterance of the Prime Minister that we should go on fighting, if need be alone, and that we should fight on our shores and in our lanes, as one of the most striking and decisive utterances in the whole of our island story. The historian, looking back on that period, will, I think, also be struck at the calmness, the complete lack of all panic, with which every village and every hamlet prepared to meet the possible invader. But of course during that time many decisions were made which afterwards were found to be unnecessary. I am not for one moment criticizing those who at that time made the decision that the bells should not be rung and should be reserved for giving notice of an invader from the air. Since then many things have happened. Many regulations which were laid down at the beginning of the war or at that time have been either removed or modified. It is no longer necessary for us to carry our gasmasks at all times and in all places. Even sign posts are beginning, it is true somewhat shyly and coyly, to point timid fingers to towns which no one could mistake. Those of your Lordships who have exceptionally good sight may occasionally from the train able to discern the name of some station, and blocks which at the time were erected on the assumption that the enemy would naturally proceed along the roads and would not trample on the growing crops have been removed to more suitable places. But amidst these very varied changes and modifications one ban remains unchanged.

For nearly three years 12,000 parishes have had their bells silenced, in case in one of these parishes there might come from the air a certain number of Germans. There have been three exceptions. On one occasion certain bells were rung by mistake; the bells were rung to celebrate the victory in Egypt; and they were rung again last Christmas. But with these exceptions, for nearly three years no bells have been rung to summon the people to worship, no bells have been pealed at weddings, no bells have been tolled for the dead, no bell has been rung at the induction of a new incumbent, no bells have been rung from college chapels. All over the country there has come a silence to our bells. There are, of course, some people who hate bells and they will regard the silence of the bells as one of the only alleviating compensations of the war. But the great majority of people deplore the silence of the bells. We who are members of the Church of England regret most deeply that our bells are not allowed to be used in the traditional way to summon people to worship. It is, however, not only members of the Church of England. There are large numbers of people who are not greatly interested in Church matters who miss the bells, and that is specially so in the country districts. Psychologically I am quite certain this silence of the bells has a very bad effect on the people.

Of course if the noble Lord who is to reply for the Government tells us this is a matter of national security, and also gives us the reasons why it is necessary for national security that the bells should be silent, I have nothing more to say. We are ready for our bells to be silenced if silence is really going to help the national cause; but I hope the noble Lord will give us some reasons why and how this ringing of the bells if the enemy should come from the air is to help. From the Regulations which have been published I understand that the bells are only to be rung if some twenty of the enemy land. Then the bells are only to be rung in the parish in which they have actually landed. I ask your Lordships to consider this in the light of cold reason. Out of the 12,000 or 13,000 parishes, about 4,000 are town parishes. How is this going to help in the towns? In a town it is not always easy to know the ecclesiastical boundaries where there are a number of different parishes. When I went to South London I soon found that the people of the parish rarely knew where their parish church was, and at the risk possibly of some misunderstanding I had for a time always to ask for the nearest public-house. It is difficult to know which church belongs to which parish.

Suppose in London or in any large centre of population some Germans came down from the air. What would happen? First of all the air raid warden—I am not quite certain who is the responsible person—or the policeman would have to be certain of the exact number. Secondly, he would have to consult a map of the parish, and then he would have to hurry to the parish church and risk his life, if he is not a bellringer, by ringing the bells. Even suppose the bells were rung, what help would that give? Suppose Germans had descended on the roof of South Africa House, what help would it be to us at Westminster or Lambeth if the bells of the parish church were rung? Or if the Germans landed in the back gardens of some street in the East End of London, what help would it give if the bells of St. Matthew’s were rung? It may, perhaps, be retorted that I am giving a caricature of all this; that it was never intended that these bells should be rung in towns as a warning but should only be rung in the country. Very well then, why ban the ringing of the bells of the town churches? Let the bells of those churches which are in the towns be rung.

Now I turn to the country districts. Here, of course, the conditions are different. Most country people know the boundaries of their parishes. They know the brook, or the field, or the wood which separates them from the neighbouring parish. Often they look upon those living in a neighbouring parish as foreigners, and, possibly, as a rather inferior class of people. But they do know their own parish boundaries. There is no difficulty over that. But in many cases these country churches have bells which are by no means strong and which cannot be heard at any considerable distance. Many of these parishes cover very large areas; often there are valleys and hills in them, and sometimes, of course, the wind may be in the wrong direction. The result will be that if these bells are meant to put people on the alert—and no one seems to be quite clear why the bells should be rung, and what the response to them should be—that result would not always be achieved. In many of these parishes a number of people would go on working away in the fields in complete confidence without hearing the slightest sound from the bells which are supposed to give them warning of danger.

I admit that there is a large number of churches to which this objection does not apply. There are numerous parishes where the churches have bells which can easily be heard over a considerable distance. But surely those bells can be rung in a different way when a warning is to be given. In the Middle Ages church bells were often rung to give warning of the approach of an invader, and, down to much later times, to give warning of fire in the town or village in which the church was situated. The bells can be clashed or clanged in a quite unmistakable way. No one in the country could possibly confuse the ringing of the bells for an alarm with the ordinary ringing for Divine Service if this was done. I do not know if the noble Lord who is to reply on behalf of the Government is himself a bell-ringer. But if he has any doubt about this point, and he is not a bell-ringer himself, I venture to say that if he tried to ring the bell of the nearest parish church the noise that the bell would make would strike consternation into the hearts of all who heard it, and no one would mistake the result of his efforts for ordinary bell-ringing.

What do I ask the noble Lord who is going to reply on behalf of the Government? I ask him, in the first place, if possible, to tell us that they are going to lift the ban entirely from all these bells. The ban, I would point out, could be put on again very promptly; a few hours’ notice given by means of the wireless would be all that would be necessary. At any rate, I suggest that the ban might be lifted for a time. If it is not possible for the noble Lord to tell us that, then I would ask the War Office, or whoever it is who is responsible, to lift the ban so far as it affects the town churches and to allow the bells in the country to be rung on Sundays or on the occasions of great festivals. At the same time that this permission was given, there could go out an order saying that the bells were not to be clashed or clanged except when required for warning purposes. If the very worst comes to the worst—I do not want to put this House to the trouble of a Division—and if the noble Lord cannot give me those assurances, I hope he will give an assurance that in the light of these facts, and in the light of what I have no doubt other members of your Lordships’ House will say in this debate, the whole matter will be most carefully reconsidered.

I have to admit that if permission is given to ring the bells at once, in many instances it will be impossible for the bells to be rung immediately. The men who used to ring them are now, in many cases, serving their country in the Forces. Nevertheless, I am quite certain that, somehow or other, most of the church bells would be rung on Sundays. People would be found who can ring bells, and there are many of the soldiers stationed in our villages, who would be very glad to ring the bells there just as they were accustomed to ring them in their own home districts. I hope the noble Lord will give us an answer which will show that very soon it will be impossible for the enemy to say that he has, at any rate, silenced our bells. I hope the noble Lord will give us an answer which will mean that the bells will once again be able to ring forth their message of faith and hope through the length and breadth of the country. I beg to move.

2130 words.