Fabian Stedman

Fabian Stedman (b. Yarkhill, Herefordshire 1640, d. 1713) was a leading figure in campanology and bell-ringing. His two books Tintinnalogia (1668) and Campanalogia (1677) are the first two publications on the subject.

Early life

Fabian Stedman was the third son to Reverend Francis Stedman.[1] His father Francis Stedman was born in Aston Munslow, Shropshire in 1598. He took Holy Orders in 1625 at the parish of Yarkhill, Herefordshire in 1625. Francis had seven children by two wives. The eldest was Francis Junior who followed his father and became Rector of the parish of Stoke Lacy, Herefordshire in 1660. Fabian Stedman was born in 1640 and baptised at Yarkhill Church on 7 December of that year. At the age of 15 he went to London to learn the trade of master printing, apprenticed to Daniel Pakeman. However it was while in London that he became the well-known bellringer.

Father of change ringing

While in London Fabian became a member of the Scholars of Cheapside, a society of ringing that practised at St Mary-le-Bow; the famous great bell of Bow from the nursery rhyme. He acted as their treasurer in 1662. It seems the society disbanded and he then applied to be a member of the Ancient Society of College Youths. The College Youths accepted him in 1664 at the age of 23.

First book on the art of change ringing

Fabian Stedman acted as publisher to the first book on change ringing called Tintinnalogia, written by Richard Duckworth. The book was published in 1667 and is seemed to have been very popular as a second print was followed a year later. It is said that he was appointed parish clerk to St Bene't's Church in Cambridge in 1670, where he is believed to have instructed the ringers,[2] but no clear evidence for this has been found.[3] Campanalogia was written solely by Fabian in 1677, also the year he became steward to the College Youths. In 1682 he became the Master of the College Youths.

Later life

Of his later life, little is known other than it seems it did not involve ringing. He changed jobs and became auditor to Customs and Excise for the Crown. He wrote his will on 17 October 1713 and died later that year. He was buried at the parish church of St Andrew Undershaft in the City of London on 16 November. The exact date of his death is not known.

Legacy

On the first page of Tintinnalogia are the words "by a lover of that art" F. Stedman. Fabian will be remembered for his principle (piece of bell-ringing music) that is commonly rung as much today as it was in the 17th century. Stedman Doubles to Cinques (5 to 11 bells) is rung in many parish churches in the British Isles and other countries which practice the English style of method ringing.

About English change ringing

Doubles and Singles, a method from Duckworth and Stedman's book Tintinnalogia.

Bells in English churches, though very carefully tuned in the diatonic (major) scale, are not used for tunes: they are rung in "changes". To take a very simple example, if a church has five bells in the key of C they will be numbered 1-2-3-4-5, 1, called the treble and having the highest note, (in this case G) and 5, the tenor, having the lowest – the keynote, C. If rung in order downwards they are said to be ringing "rounds." If the order changes according to a predetermined pattern, they are ringing the "changes" – hence the activity of church bell ringing is usually simply known as change-ringing.

Because a bell's swing takes a determinate time which cannot be much altered by the ringer, changes can be produced only by a bell exchanging places with one next to it in the order. For instance, starting from rounds (12345) no. 3 can step down towards the front and move into 2nd place by exchanging with 2 to give 13245 or up to fourth place by exchanging with 4 to give 12435. Until Stedman's time changes were produced by exchanging only one pair of bells at a time, in this manner. The aim (remembering that in the early days there were never more than five bells in one tower) was to start from rounds, produce every possible change (an "extent") once and once only, finishing again with rounds. This is quite possible changing only one pair at a time or, "plain changes", but can be boring for ringers whose bells do not change position for many blows together.

Stedman's achievement was to develop methods – then known as "cross-changes" – which could produce an "extent" (i.e. all possible changes) by changing more than one pair of bells at a time. For instance, starting with rounds on five bells (12345) one might move to 21354 then to 23145 and so on. The aim of producing an extent without repeating a change apart from rounds at the start and finish could now be realised more artistically and with more interest for the ringers. One of the very earliest methods, known as Doubles and Singles in Tintinnalogia, is illustrated at right. The diagram shows the course of the lightest bell (1) and one other bell (in this case 2). All bells other than the 1 follow the same course as the 2 but start in different places.

As more bells were added to towers, Stedman's methods were adapted to higher numbers. Since the number of possible changes varies with the factorial of the number of bells, it became impractical to ring extents on numbers above 7 (the extent on 10 bells would take around three months) any performance of 5,000 (approximately 7!) changes or above became recognised as a "peal", but still with the traditional restrictions that no change may be repeated and that a bell may exchange only with one adjacent in the row. Nowadays many hundreds of methods are practised; all, in some degree, owe a debt to Stedman's pioneering work which has value as well in mathematics (group theory) as well as the more limited field of bell-ringing.

References

  1. ↑ Eisel, John. "Stedman, Fabian". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
  2. ↑ St Bene't's Church, Cambridge – Change Ringing
  3. ↑ Eisel, John. "Stedman, Fabian". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 22 November 2015.

External links

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