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Bells played an important part in the lives of
our ancestors.
At the penal settlement at
Newcastle in
1818 Commandant
James Wallis
was instructed to
punish with 25 lashes any prisoner leaving work before the bell rang
signifying the end of the day's labour. Between 1819 and 1820 eight bells
were sent to Newcastle.
The convict's lives were
ruled by bells. They were awakened by them, and called to meals, to
church and to muster by the ringing of the bells. They were called to
labour, where they remained for the day. Even if they finished their
allotted tasks before the ten hour bell rang, they were required to
remain at their work place and await the sound
of the bell, at which time the convicts all left work together.
At night at Newcastle, the bells rang at eight o'clock in winter and
nine o'clock in summer. All sailors and masters of vessels were to have
returned to their vessels by this time. Sailors in breach of this order
could receive corporal punishment if caught.
A sentinel was placed at the wharf to detain anyone
transgressing the rules. Sailors were well used to a life ruled by bells
as well. A correspondent to the Sydney Gazette described
Campbell's Wharf in Sydney in 1831 -
Arrived
at the wall enclosing those spacious premises of Robert Campbell, a
person of indefatigable industry , strong reason, and great experience,
- you enter a wicket, cross a yard not unworthy of the London docks, and
descend to that busy haunt of commerce, Campbell's
Wharf, alongside which lies the
steamer,
impatiently awaiting the arrival of her
passengers. Before you is the famous Port Jackson, crowded with
shipping from many a clime, their glimmering lights dancing upon the
rippling waters, and their hollow toned bells chiming, in quick
succession, the high naval hour of eight.
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The only workers to escape the
regimen of the bells were the timber getters. They left the settlement
for up to a month at a time, travelling far up the river in search of
the valuable iron bark, cedar and gum trees. They escaped the strict
routine for a while but had hostile natives, inadequate rations and
arduous work to contend with instead. |
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Governor King
and the Lady Nelson's Bell
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to enlarge
Find out more about
bushranger John Fitzgerald here |
It was not only convicts and sailors who
were ruled by bells. Agricultural workers on the farms had their days
marked out, companies marked their hours of business and city folk were
subjected to the night watchman ringing the hour every night It is also
possible that bells were rung at any of the nine executions that took place at
Newcastle.
Bells were used to signify celebrations (Ringing in the New Year with three bells in 1845), and to summon
parishioners to church. For years children were summoned to classes by
the ringing of a bell. In Newcastle and Stockton in 1848 they were
called to Sunday school by the sound of a bell -
'The
bell which on week days is rung to call together the workmen on the
north shore of our harbour, has been heard on the two last Sabbath Days
sweetly sounding at eight o’clock in the morning and at two in the
afternoon, for the purpose of calling the children connected with the
factory at Stockton to attend the Sunday School, which, as well as a
similar one at Newcastle is conducted by Mr. J. Stewart, a son of the
Rev. R. Stewart, the highly respected Presbyterian minister at present
officiating at Newcastle; who has also performed divine service at
Stockton, at three o’clock in the afternoon of the two last, and intends
to continue doing so on each succeeding, Sunday, at the same time and
place.'
As well as to signify
celebration, toll the hour or summon to work, bells also tolled for
death, as can be seen from the article below,
written by a correspondent to the Australian (XYZ).
(The Scotch parson the correspondent refers to is
Rev. Dr. J. D. Lang)
Account of a Trip to Hunter's River - Letter 1.
January being the most disagreeable month in Sydney, when the heat and
mosquitos are alike troublesome, the meat and water very bad; and
the fruits still unripe, and it being the period of the year generally
reminding one of holidays and the country, I determined to avail myself
of a little leisure, and as soon as I had seen the old year out, and new
year in, gave orders for getting the old portmanteau ready for a start
in the
Liverpool
Packet for Newcastle.
“Home keeping youth have ever homely wits,” and a little change, now and
then, has the happiest effect upon our whole system. I made my conge to
the streets of Sydney with the greater pleasure, as every body was
talking of the sudden death of the chief baker, and the newly imported
and noisy bell of the Scotch Parson, was tolling the news with its iron
tongue, not into those ears only, but into the heads of all his
Majesty’s liege subjects, half a mile round “Man may escape from rope
and gun, Nay, some have outlived the doctor’s pill” – but I quite expect
to hear before the summer is out, that some nervous sensitive persons
will not so easily survive the Doctor’s bell. What can the Aurora Australiis mean by introducing this dark and benighted relic of Monkish
superstition into a new country? The original meaning to pray for the
soul of the departed that it may have a prosperous voyage to the other
world is now confined to the Catholics, and if the Doctor would send his
bell to the Rev. Priest, at Hyde Park, the nuisance could be well
spared.
The Australian 31
January 1827;
Maitland Mercury 4th January 1845;
Maitland Mercury 25 May1848; The Sydney
Gazette 19
November 1831; Turner, J.W. (Ed)., Newcastle as a Convict
Settlement: The Evidence before J.T. Bigge in 1819 - 1821
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