Did you know... Portsmouth bells for the Armistice - 1918
A grayish sea goes sweeping in beyond the boom to-day;
The harbour is a cold, clear space, for far beyond the Solent's race
The grey-flanked cruisers play.
For it's oh! the long, long night up North, the sullen twilit day,
Where Portsmouth men cruise up and down, and all alone in Portsmouth Town
Are women left to pray.
Oh, bells of Portsmouth Town, oh, bells of Portsmouth Town,
What will ye ring when once again the green leaves turn to brown?
This is the second verse of an atmospheric poem Portsmouth Bells, written by Walter E. Grogan in 1915, the year after WWI began. It was published in the Portsmouth Evening News, and the cathedral holds a hand-written and signed copy in our Archives.
On 11 November 1918 the Armistice was proclaimed, signalling an end to the Great War, and church bells rang out across the country on November 11 to help proclaim victory and peace. Partly that was because bell-ringing had been restricted during the four years of war, so ringers spontaneously volunteered to ring on Armistice Day as an expression of their relief that the war was over. Those working in the Royal Dockyard in Portsmouth were given special permission to leave to ring the bells of St Thomas’s Parish Church and St Mary’s, Portsea, at 12 noon; the ringing continued at intervals until the evening.
One month later, on 14 December, the first peal of Grandsire Triples since 1912 (when the bells were recast and rehung) was rung in 3 hours and 18 minutes by the Winchester Diocesan Guild of Change Ringers, in which diocese St Thomas’s still was at that time. They rang the peal again on 14 June 1919, and improved on their time … by one minute!
A list of the 1919 bell-ringers’ names
The Vicar’s Letter in the Portsmouth Parish Church Magazine (written at the point of Armistice in early November 1918, published in December) declared:
‘At last! What we have been hoping and praying for has come: though formal Peace has yet to be declared, War is over with all its hate and shame and horrors. Germany’s unconditional surrender has made the resumption of this War impossible; it rests with this and future generations to prevent War by removing the causes – greed, suspicion, oppression. We must see to it that individuals and nations alike shall have every opportunity of making the best of themselves within the limits of ordered liberty.’
The sound of church bells expressed this sense of joy; as the current Dean of Winchester, Catherine Ogle, recently described it: ‘Great invisible, vibrating waves of energy sent out across towns, cities, villages and country-side. This sound links heaven and earth, claims our attention; from far beyond us, bells call us to something greater than ourselves.’