1000 pealers

It isn’t every day that someone rings their 1,000th peal, though it is becoming more common – in 2019 eleven of the world’s 30,000+ ringers did it. The first person to ring 1,000 peals was Rev Francis Edward Robinson, founder and first Master of the Oxford Diocesan Guild. He was Vicar of Drayton for 30 years but he retired to Wokingham and is buried in All Saints churchyard. There’s a pealboard in the tower recording the peal rung on the day of his funeral in 1910, and we have a picture of the crowd of mourners around his grave. For more details see: allsaintswokinghambells.org.uk/ASRingers/Robinson/ 

Robinson rang his 1,000th peal in 1905 but it was another six years before the second person did so, and only twenty had by 1950. In recent decades far more people ring 1,000 peals, with 545 having done so to date.

FE Robinson’s lifetime total was 1256 but many ringers exceed that today. Twelve have rung over 5,000 peals, with Colin Turner in the lead at around 7,700 – and many of them are still going strong.

The latest person to ring his 1000th peal was David Maynard, on 14 December. He recently moved to Wokingham with his wife Helen who grew up here, and they ring at All Saints. Other Branch ringers who rang their 1000th peal in recent years are Janet Menhinick of Sandhurst in 2018 (currently over 1,140) and Ken Davenport of Wokingham St Paul in 2013 (currently over 1,540).

David rang his 1000 peals in just over 20 years, whereas FE Robinson took 46 years, and Leonard Stillwell who was the slowest took 70 years. That’s partly because far more peals are rung now than in Robinson’s day. Typically there are between 4,500 & 5,000 a year whereas there were fewer than 1,500 in 1905. At the other extreme, the fastest first 1,000 peals were rung by Paul Pascoe in just under 9 years, with several others taking not much longer.

David’s 1,000 peals were split evenly between tower and handbells, with 500 of each, something which very few others have done. Most people don’t realise how many handbell peals are rung since they are usually rung in private houses rather than being public performances, but about 20% of all the peals rung each year are rung in hand. Even so that’s only one in five, so to ring 500 of each is quite an achievement.

Most of us are never likely to ring anywhere near 1,000 peals, in fact a lot of ringers never ring peals at all. The same is true in most areas of human activity – sport, music or whatever – where a few participants perform at a high level and most perform at a more modest level (or in the case of spectator sports don’t perform at all). But we can still admire and be inspired by the achievements of the minority who do achieve significant feats, even if we can’t hope to equal them.

  John Harrison (January 2020)