Friday, April 27, 2012

The Sellers Family

The Sellers family were York Bellfounders whose earliest member was William who from 1662 had his foundry in Jubbergate. Crotals with the initials ES are credited to Edward or his son. Edward followed William. He died a wealthy man in 1724 leaving the Foundry to his sons Richard and Edward. Edward retired and finally sold off the last remnants of the business in 1763. He sadly had left it a little late because he died in November 1764. So I guess there is a fair chance that this bell was made in the first half of the 18th century.
Bells like this have long been used as animal bells, probably for cows , sheep or goats. Known as rumbler or crotal bells they must have made quite a noise in their heyday.
This bell turned up in a car boot sale. The chap offered it on Ebay with no idea what it was. I had been looking for an Edward Sellers bell for some time and was delighted to get it.
The bell is made of bell metal and is 3.5 inches across.

2 comments:

Spyder said...

Hi Fido! How strange, I was doing that just last night~ New Forest Blog hopping! You certainly know a great deal about bells! (and of course the car~ the best car, Lexus) My Hubby has a dream that we might own one, one day ~of course, in the dream, it can fly, change colour in the rain and never need filling up! My blog is a bit 'girly, but it keeps me sane! (that's questionable!)
Good Luck with your Blog.
((Lyn))

Unknown said...

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