Bealings Bells

Title of a book by Major Edward Moore, F.R.S., that was published in 1841 on the mysterious bell ringing in his house at Great Bealings, Suffolk, England, which began February 2, 1834, and lasted for 53 days. Every attempt to discover the cause of the mysterious ringing was fruitless, and by no effort could the same clamorous, rapid ringing be normally produced. After three days of the strange experience, Major Moore concluded, "I am thoroughly convinced that the ringing is by no human agency." The psychic researcher Frank Podmore, in Modern Spiritualism (1902), believed the conviction too hastily formed and pointed out that the Major, the sole witness, did not describe a single occasion on which every member of the household was accounted for when the bell ringing occurred. However, no comment was passed by him on the sequel to Major Moore's story as told in the Ipswich Journal. Readers of the paper sent 14 communications of similar happenings in different parts of England, some of them recurring and having an ancestry of 100 years.

In My Life (1901), Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace quoted the testimony of Professor Anstead: "A neighbour and friend of mine at Great Bealings has had the most wonderful things happen in his house, which no one has ever been able to find a cause for. He has often told me about the bells ringing when no one was in the house. He was a very clever man, and I am sure what he says is true, and many people in the neighbourhood were witnesses of it."

Sources:

Podmore, Frank. Modern Spiritualism. London: Methuen, 1902. Reprinted as Mediums of the Nineteenth Century. New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1963.