English manufacturer of large bells, c.1581?1664
Hatch bell foundry
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Illustration of a foundry stamp of Thomas Hatch on a bell at
Langley, Kent
, cast in 1599
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Operated
| c.
1581
(
1581
)
?
1664
(
1664
)
|
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Location
| Ulcombe
,
Kent
, England
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Industry
| Metalworking
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Products
| Bells
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Owner(s)
| Hatch family
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The
Hatch bell foundry
at
Ulcombe
, near
Maidstone
, in
Kent
, England, was operated by three generations of the Hatch family from 1581 or earlier until 1664. The
bellfounders
were based at nearby
Broomfield
from about 1587 until at least 1639. Joseph Hatch, bellfounder from 1602 to 1639, cast at least 155
bells
, including "Bell Harry", after which the central tower of
Canterbury Cathedral
is named. Most Hatch bells were used in churches east of the
River Medway
in East Kent.
The bellfounders
[
edit
]
The first recorded member of the Hatch family of
bellfounders
, named Thomas, received payment for work in the church at
Cranbrook, Kent
, in 1581 and 1593.
He also made
bells
for the church at
Lyminge
in 1585 and for St Margaret's Church,
Canterbury
, and the churches at
Bearsted
,
Langley
and
Margate
in 1599.
In 1887, according to J. C. L. Stahlschmidt, the only remaining bells made by Thomas Hatch were the
treble bells
at Langley and in St Margaret's Church, Canterbury, the latter being "cracked and useless".
[Fn 1]
Stahlschmidt also wrote that a
Bible
belonging to the Hatch family gave Thomas Hatch's year of death as 1599, but he noted that a Thomas Hatch was recorded as a
churchwarden
for
Broomfield
, near
Maidstone
, in 1603.
[Fn 2]
A bell cast in 1602 for the church at
Waltham, Kent
, bears Thomas Hatch's
foundry
stamp of a bell on a shield with the letters "T" and "H" on either side,
[8]
but the bell also bears the legend
Iosephvs Hatch Me Fecit
, meaning 'Joseph Hatch made me', in reference to Thomas Hatch's son Joseph.
Robert H. Goodsall, writing in 1970, noted that
marriage bonds
were provided by a "Thomas Hatch of Broomfield, bellfounder", in December 1607, for the marriage of one Joseph Hatch, also a bellfounder of Broomfield, and Jane Prowd of Canterbury: this Thomas Hatch could have been either Joseph Hatch's father or a brother of the same name.
The bell cast for Waltham in 1602 was probably the first made by Joseph Hatch, who otherwise used a foundry stamp of a circle containing three bells, for example on two bells cast in the same year for
Egerton
.
[Fn 3]
In 1887 there remained 155 of his bells in Kent, and in 1969 there were 19 in Canterbury alone.
While there were "probably a good many more of which no records have come to light",
bells may also have been cast by him for buildings other than churches.
Among Joseph Hatch's output was the bell known as "Bell Harry", dated 1635, after which the central tower of
Canterbury Cathedral
is known.
[Fn 4]
Stahlschmidt wrote that, in 1887, there remained complete
rings of bells
by Joseph Hatch in the churches at
Boughton Malherbe
,
Fordwich
,
High Halden
, Waltham and
Wouldham
, all in Kent.
[Fn 5]
He also observed that Joseph Hatch's bell-foundry business over 37 to 38 years "may fairly be described as enormous".
[Fn 6]
In addition to the provisions of his written will, Joseph Hatch made oral bequests totalling £240 on 13 September 1639, the day before he died.
There was no explicit reference to the bell foundry in Joseph Hatch's will, and it may be that, while he was childless, it had already been passed on to his nephew William Hatch, who is described in the will as Joseph Hatch's servant.
Stahlschmidt understood "servant" to mean "foreman", since William Hatch's initials occur on bells cast by Joseph Hatch from 1633.
The business was disrupted in William Hatch's time by the
English Civil War
(1642?1651), and he is only known to have cast 25 bells, including rings at
Lower Halstow
and
Minster-in-Sheppey
.
He died in 1664, and the bell foundry was discontinued.
The bell foundry
[
edit
]
Stahlschmidt suspected that Thomas Hatch was first based in Canterbury, but, from late in the 16th century, the Hatch family of bellfounders was based at Roses Farm, Broomfield, near Maidstone, where Thomas Hatch may have first taken up residence in 1587.
[Fn 7]
In 1889, W. Scott Robertson noted that the property of Roses Farm straddled the boundary between the
parishes
of Broomfield and
Ulcombe
:
in a receipt for work on the bells at
Birchington-on-Sea
in 1606 Joseph Hatch described himself as "of Bromfeild", and he was buried in the churchyard at Broomfield, but he said in his will of 1639 that he was "of Ulcombe".
[Fn 8]
Stahlschmidt considered it unlikely that the foundry was among the property bequeathed to Joseph Hatch's widow Jane, which included the main dwelling-house of Roses Farm, in Broomfield, and a smaller house adjacent, so it must have lain elsewhere.
Bellfounding did not require dedicated buildings, and bells were sometimes cast in the vicinity of the churches for which they were made,
but Stahlschmidt also reported a statement by James T. Hatch, a descendant of the same family, that the Hatch foundry was:
on the north side of King's Wood, in Ulcombe (which wood extends also into the parishes of Broomfield, Leeds and Langley), in a field [then called] 'the Welmonground', evidently a corruption of 'the bellman's ground,' and the scoriæ and debris remained upon the site within my time and memory.
[Fn 9]
?
J. C. L. Stahlschmidt,
The Church Bells of Kent: Their Inscriptions, Founders, Uses and Traditions
(1887)
The Hatch bell foundry was thus located adjacent to the
Weald
, giving easy access to skilled metalworkers from the
local iron industry
and a plentiful supply of cheap
charcoal
, used to fuel the foundry.
[Fn 10]
From their bells would have been carted to their destinations, some across the
River Medway
into West Kent, but most to East Kent.
[Fn 11]
That the foundry produced items other than bells is indicated by a
mortar
held at
Maidstone Museum
, cast in
bell metal
, and bearing the initials "TH" and the year 1590.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"This treble bell has had an eventful life. Before 1902 the inscription read: 'By me Thomas Hatch T M C W 1599' and underneath the date was a crowned rose. [In] 1902, we learn from the [St Margaret's, Canterbury,] parish magazine of that year, ... an estimate [was] received from Goslin of the Bishopsgate foundry for £55 to recast the [bell] and repair the framework and chiming apparatus. ... [T]he bell ..., one of only two left in Kent by Thomas Hatch, fell to pieces in getting it down."
It was recast in 1902, and installed in St Peter's Church, Canterbury, in 1969.
- ^
Stahlschmidt also found Thomas Hatch's name in a
marriage licence
of 1601.
- ^
A representation of Joseph Hatch's inscription on a bell in St Martin's Church,
Herne
, cast by him in 1621, is at
Offen 1984
, p. 80.
- ^
Bell Harry is rung every day for
matins
and
evensong
, and to signal the death of the
monarch
or the
Archbishop of Canterbury
.
The bell is hung "dead", or fixed, in a shelter on the roof of the tower, "and is sounded by means of an electro-magnetic hammer."
[17]
"[T]radition affirms [Bell Harry] to have been the gift of Henry VIII, and to have been brought out of France. If this be correct ? and the name given to it seems corroborative ? it has been recast, as it now bears the date 1635."
- ^
Stahlschmidt noted in 1887 that many of Joseph Hatch's bells may have been recast, as were two at
Barming
.
Other bells survived in 1887 but had been displaced, such as two of four cast by him in 1635 for
St Mary's Church, Reculver
, one of which was hanging in
Reculver's replacement church
at
Hillborough
and another in the church at
Badlesmere
; the other two were probably melted.
The bell at Hillborough was stolen in 1970.
In 1929, four of his bells that had hung in the church of St Mary's Northgate, Canterbury, one of which had been recast in 1813, were given to Bishop
Nelson Fogarty
for use in St George's Cathedral,
Windhoek
, in
Damaraland
, now in
Namibia
: only one was put to this use, the other three being used elsewhere in Damaraland.
Three of Joseph Hatch's bells hanging in St George's Church, Canterbury, were destroyed in an
air raid
in 1942, during the
Second World War
.
In 1969 it was reported that one bell made by Joseph Hatch in 1625 and hanging in St Margaret's Church, Canterbury, was to be moved to the parish of
Droxford
, in Hampshire, and another was to be moved to
Newchurch
, on
Romney Marsh
.
- ^
According to Stahlschmidt, and in particular reference to the
Whitechapel Bell Foundry
, in Joseph Hatch's time he and another bell foundry at
Borden
, near
Sittingbourne
, "practically drove the London men out of the field [in Kent]."
- ^
"Cowper's
Canterbury Marriage Licences
(First Series) contains the record: 'Hatch, Thomas, of Tenterden, and Margaret King, of Cranbrook, w[idow], Sept[ember] 22, 1587', perhaps he became tenant of Roses Farm at this time."
- ^
Two title deeds for Roses Farm, both dated 1 April 1606, bear the endorsement "The mark
I. H.
of Joseph Hatch".
- ^
"
Scoriae
" are pieces of metal
slag
.
- ^
"The work of casting would have called for the services of a number of skilled craftsmen who would have lived in the surrounding district".
- ^
In 1606?1607 1s.8d. (9p) was paid "for fetching the great bell [of Cranbrook] from Broomfield".
In 1640?1641, £12.8s. (£12.40) was paid to "belfounder [
sic
] ... Hatch" for "casting the greate bell [for Aylesford] and for the new mettall w[hich] was put in [and] ... [14s. (70p) was paid for] carying the said bell to casting and fetching the said bell home againe".
In 1662?1663, 6s. (30p) was "spent [at Bethersden] when the Bellfounder [William Hatch] tooke the bells to cast ... [and 1s.2d. (6p) was spent] when the bell was taken out of the waggon when shee was brought home".
Notes
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Anon. (1969), "Canterbury bells: An investigation into the bells of the churches of Canterbury",
Cantium
,
1
(1),
ISSN
0590-7977
- Goodsall, Robert H. (1970),
A Third Kentish Patchwork
, Stedehill,
ISBN
978-0-9500151-1-8
- Gough, Harold (1995) [1969], Blake, Lawrence J. (ed.),
The Parish of Reculver: A Short Historical Guide to the Parish and to the Present Church of St Mary the Virgin at Hillborough
, St Mary the Virgin P.C.C.
- Hubbard, G. E. (1951),
The Old book of Wye, Being a Record of a Kentish Country Parish from the Time of Henry the Eighth to that of Charles the Second
, Pilgrim,
OCLC
6537643
- Offen, R. (1984), "The bells of St Martin's Church, Herne", in McIntosh, K.H.; Gough, H.E. (eds.),
Hoath and Herne: The Last of the Forest
, K. H. McIntosh, pp. 79?80,
ISBN
978-0-9502423-7-8
- Scott Robertson, W. (1889),
"Joseph Hatch, the bellfounder, and Roses Farm, in Broomfield and Ulcombe"
(PDF)
,
Archaeologia Cantiana
,
18
: 433?5,
ISSN
0066-5894
,
archived
(PDF)
from the original on 3 June 2015
, retrieved
3 June
2015
- Stahlschmidt, J. C. L. (1887),
The Church Bells of Kent: Their Inscriptions, Founders, Uses and Traditions
, Elliot Stock,
OCLC
12772194
, retrieved
5 June
2015
- Swaan, Wim (1984),
The Gothic Cathedral
, Omega,
ISBN
0-907853-48-X
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Background and
terminology
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Types
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Ringing styles
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Notable bells
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Bell founders
and foundries
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Related
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