“Heigho!”  say the bells of St George’s 

In 1828 the architect Francis Johnston had a peal of eight bells cast and installed in the belfry of the church he had designed and built, St. George’s, Temple Street, Dublin.1

The details of the bells are as follows:2

A clock was installed in the following year, 1829.4 In the invitation to tender, published in May 1828, it was specified that hours should be struck “on a bell of about a ton weight. Also to chime the quarters on four other bells of from seven to ten hundredweight each.”5

Thwaites and Reed of London were chosen to manufacture and install the clock.6 It ceased to function in 1951, and remained silent until 1966, when an electric clock was installed.7 The fate of the original clock is unknown.

This was the clock that chimed three quarters on 16 June 1904, to remind Leopold Bloom that the time was 8.45 am:

A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George’s church. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron.

Heigho! Heigho!

Heigho! Heigho!

Heigho! Heigho!

Quarter to. There again: the overtone following through the air. A third. U 4.544-50

Many commentators assume that these quarters were Westminster chimes. Westminster chimes are also known as Cambridge chimes, from the place where they originated in 1793, the Church of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge.

These Cambridge chimes did not gain widespread popularity until after 1859, when they were copied for the clock of the Palace of Westminster, where Big Ben hangs. A renowned authority on chimes, H. H. Starmer, noted in 1907 that it was “curious that these melodious chimes were in use at Cambridge for over half a century before they attracted any attention. They were first copied at the Royal Exchange, London, in 1845.”8 This makes it extremely unlikely that the St. George’s clock quarters were Westminster chimes. The architectural records held by the Church of Ireland RCB archives bear this out. In 1928, bell founders Taylors of Loughborough were contracted to replace five clock hammers, to strike bells 1, 2 ,3, 4, and 8.9 So, we now know that the notes of the quarter chimes were E flat, D, C and B flat; and that the hours were struck on the number 8 tenor bell. Westminster chimes cannot be played with these notes.

In response to a query about U 4.544-50, Dr James Nye10 and Alex Jeffrey11 of The Clockworks museum, London, 

made the following observations:

Bloom hears Heigho! Heigho! which to us clearly implies a descending sequence, with Heigh as the first note, Ho as the second, and so forth. As it is, since we know the quarters at St George’s were on four bells, the most likely scenario is (drawn from the table) E flat, D, C, B flat. This run was played once at the quarter, twice at the half etc. This could plausibly become

Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
  Heigho! Heigho!12

In a quest to discover the lost chimes of St. George’s clock, a working Thwaites turret clock with similar specifications might provide the answer.

Following the death of noted clockmaker Langley Bradley, Aynsworth Thwaites succeeded to his business, establishing himself probably from the early 1750s. After his death in 1794 he was succeeded by his son John Thwaites; John formed a partnership with his nephew George Jeremiah Reed, probably in 1815, and the business traded as Thwaites and Reed thereafter.13

Like Bradley before him, Aynsworth Thwaites was engaged to carry out maintenance on the clock of the second Royal Exchange, London, which had been provided by Edward Stanton in 1670. In a research note, The Quarter Strike of the Second Royal Exchange, London, Recovered, George W. Williams, describing the public excitement caused by the new clock in 1670 states:

What is remarkable in these specifications is the requirement to strike the quarter on four bells.

[…]

It is difficult now to reconstruct the sense of innovation that must have accompanied the installation of the sophisticated system at the Second Exchange or the musical excitement that the quarters on four bells must have provided; but when the decision was made in 1670 to require the quarters at the Royal Exchange to be struck on four bells, we must recognize that a great change was taking place. An indication of its significance may be found in the fact that almost a century later, the London clockmaster, Aynsworth Thwaytes [sic], was so much impressed by the system that he incorporated it into his standard offering of tower clocks.

[…]

In 1763 the Vestry of St Michael's Church, Charles Town [sic], in South Carolina, ordered a clock for their new church: ‘The 2d clock in Mr. Ainsworth Thwaytes [sic] List of Estimates ... A strong 30 Hour Clock ... to strike the Hour on the Largest Bell and the quarters on 4 bells, as the Royal Exchange, London.’ The quarter strike of the St Michael's clock sounds on the four highest bells of the octave, in the traditional descending or ‘ting-tang’ order, in alternating sequence (i.e. – conformed to the key of C: C - A - B - G). The alternation produces a system of two interlocking thirds, a minor third followed by a major third. We might call it ‘double ting-tang’.14

The peal of eight bells in St. Michael’s church, Charleston are in the key of E, as were those in St. George’s, Dublin. Their details are as follows:15

The clock of St. Michael’s church, Charleston is still in operation. Here is a video of the three-quarter chime of that clock:16

Given that St. George’s clock and bells had specifications practically identical to St. Michael’s, Charleston, and that both clocks were manufactured by Thwaites, it is highly likely that their chimes were identical too. To echo the opinion of Dr. Nye, “the closest you can probably get to knowing what Bloom heard is that video.”18

Eamonn Finn

I wish to extend my thanks to the following for their assistance in the preparation of this article:

Helen Crawford Walsh and Elizabeth Hassell of the Church of Ireland Representative Church Body (RCB) Library, Dublin, for their valuable help and guidance.

Dr. Kirsten Tambling, curator of The Clockworks museum, London, and her colleagues, Dr. James Nye and Alex Jeffrey, for giving generously of their time and expertise.

Daniel D. Jeffries, Dee’s Clockworks LLC, Monticello, Georgia, for his generous comments and permission to use a recording of his YouTube video of the clock of St. Michael’s Church, Charleston, SC.