Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

I have recently been looking at the Liverpool parish registers digitised on line at Ancestry and note some records for St Peters c 1802, all transcribed as burials, but on the same page are burials and then another section entitled bells given. (Record office reference 283 PET/6/1) After a while the reference to burials is dropped altogether and all are listed as bells given. On the pages with both listed the names are not duplicated.

Can anyone tell me if this meant that there was a burial as well as, what I assume, was a passing bell rung, or were they buried elsewhere Were the passing bells rung on the day of death or day of burial
I have never come across this before and am curious.

Thanks

Could it be linked to the origin of the phrase "saved by the bell" and burial of the living?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Safety_coffin


Blue

'Saved by the bell' is surely from boxing, where the counting out would be interrupted by the ringing of the bell for the end of the round. That may have changed nowadays (H&S and all that!) but used to be the case.

D

Just a suggestion but would love to know the answer as well.
You might possibly ask at the following site ?
http://www.cccbr.org.uk/
Surely someone there would know the answer ?

Thanks for your replies. I will ask a colleague who is a bellringer, but this doesn't really explain why 'bells rung' are recorded rather than 'burials'. I will ask on a couple of other forums I belong to - as I said I had never come across this sort of entry in a parish register before, until St Peters, and thought someone on this forum might have come across it and got an explanation.

link for example on Anc,

http://interactive.ancestry.co.uk/2247/ ... turnRecord

Bell brought up?

Perhaps, the bells were rung on request,
For whom the bell tolls

I'm wondering if "passing bells" gives any clue - could a funeral cortege be passing St Peters on their way to a funeral at St Nicholas?

I had totally the wrong idea then didn't I

As a little girl staying with my grandparents in Rainford I remember being scared when one day a bell started being rung. People went into the street and they could tell if it was a man, woman or child by the first ringing and then decided who it might be by the number of rings made. I'd never heard such a thing and just found the tolling of the church bell alarming.

When I moved here I met a distant relative who confirmed that yes in the 1950s and later the passing bell was rung.

Edited because realised I'd misread something!

As the unusual register entries are particular to St Peter's could it be that a 'new' incumbent pastor at that church changed the 'routine' at burials and introduced the 'Passing Bell' into the parish?

dickiesam wrote:As the unusual register entries are particular to St Peter's could it be that a 'new' incumbent pastor at that church changed the 'routine' at burials and introduced the 'Passing Bell' into the parish?

Perhaps seen as a little earner, there was a charge made for the Passing Bell. Various examples in the Liverpool Mercury.

Passing bell: rung to mark the passing from this life, not passing another church.
D

Brilliant topic, thanks all

Bertieone wrote:link for example on Anc,

http://interactive.ancestry.co.uk/2247/ ... turnRecord

Bell brought up?

Methinks that might mean 'Bells' brought forward in modern accounting parlance?

Thank you everyone for your replies. The examples given were exactly the pages I was referring to and as well as bells 'brought up' there are 'bells asunder'. The first page I came across has both burials and bells and both have pd in the margin. So I'm guessing both had been paid for, as someone said perhaps the vicar decided to record the bells rather than the burials and perhaps burials in the churchyard ceased.
I am still quite confused by the whole issue though.

How do I add a picture? I know I have to click on IMG and put the file in between but in what format?

Here is the link for images,

http://forum.liverpool-genealogy.org.uk ... =16&t=9817

jbnz13 wrote: I am still quite confused by the whole issue though.

Having another look at the 1802 parish records for St Peters, the account for passing bells tells us that all burials during 1802 received Bells. The year starting with the heading, Burials for 1802, each month after are headed, Bells Given. The headings, Bells brought over and Bells brought up, brought over, from one page to another, brought up, from the bottom of one page to the top of the next, the same month being recorded.

Asunder,

"those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder"

This is on some months but not others, no idea why, perhaps just a preference by who was doing the records.

Bertieone wrote:Asunder,
"those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder"
This is on some months but not others, no idea why, perhaps just a preference by who was doing the records.

I think 'Asunder' could simply be 'As under', being the heading of the list and written by a somewhat florid hand?