Index to carillons and chimes by Warner

The Warner foundry, now closed, provided bells for various chimes and rings throughout the world. See the bottom of this page for the history of this bellfoundry.

The sites are listed in order by year of installation (unknown first). For a given year, they are in order by country and city.
Following the year is an indication of the founder's contribution to the instrument:

C = Complete instrument
F = Foundation; originally a complete installation, later expanded
I = Intermediate expansion
E = Final expansion to current state

Finally, there is an indication of the type of instrument:

  trad      - carillon with traditional keyboard
  non-trad  - carillon with non-traditional mechanism
  mech?     - carillon with unknown mechanism
  chime     - chime (any mechanism)
  chimola   - chime of hemispheric bells (any mechanism)
  ring      - bells hung for change ringing (chime-sized)
  great     - great bell (over 4 tonnes weight) not in a chime or carillon
  [...]     - instrument is defunct; link is to "sites that are no more"

John Warner & Sons, London, England

This list does not include Warner's significant production of change-ringing bells for places in the British Isles.

ZANZIBAR                      : TANZANIA     1??? C [mech?]
   Cathedral 

Westminster                   : ENGLAND      1856 - [great]
   "Big Ben" (original)
   Clock Tower
   Houses of Parliament
Leeds                         : ENGLAND      1859 -  great
   Town Hall
CALCUTTA (KOLKATA) - STJ      : INDIA        1864 C  chime
   St.James Church (Jora Girja)
Bolton                        : ENGLAND      1872 - [great]
   Town Hall
DEPTFORD                      : ENGLAND -SE  1872 C (chimola)
   St.Luke's Parish Church
DALSTON - SMK                 : ENGLAND -E   1877 C  chime/ring
   Saint Mark's Parish Church 
GRAHAMSTOWN                   : S AFRICA     1879 F  ring
   Cathedral Church of SS.Michael & George
WELLINGTON - STPE             : NEW ZEALAND  188_ C  chime
   St.Peter's Anglican Church
MADRID - 1                    : SPAIN        1882 C  ring
   South tower
   Real Basilica de San Francisco el Grande
MADRID - 2                    : SPAIN        1882 C  chime
   North tower
   Real Basilica de San Francisco el Grande
MURRURUNDI                    : AUSTRALIA    1883 C  chime
   St.Paul's Anglican Church
CHARLESTON - G                : USA - SC     1883*F  ring
   Columbarium tower 
   Grace Episcopal Church 
   * (cast for St.Mary Magdalene, Enfield,
     Middlesex, England)
QUÉBEC - B                    : CANADA - QU  1885 C  ring
   The St.Matthew's Bell Tower
   (was part of St.Matthew's Church)
BIRTLES HALL                  : ENGLAND -CH  1895 C  chime
   St.Catherine Parish Church 
OLD GREENWICH - B             : USA - CT     1901 C  chimola
   Chimes Building 
   Tod's Point (Greenwich Point Park) 
FREDERICTON - CCC             : CANADA - NB  1911 C  chime
   Christ Church Cathedral 
WINNIPEG - K                  : CANADA - MB  1912 C  chime
   Knox United Church 
   (formerly Knox Presbyterian Church)
SAINT JOHN - T                : CANADA - NB  1914 E  chime
   Trinity Anglican Church 
TORONTO - TE                  : CANADA - ON  1914 C  chime
   Timothy Eaton Memorial United Church 
STAVANGER                     : NORWAY       1922 F  trad
   Domkirke (Cathedral)

History:

The firm of John Warner & Sons was begun in 1739. Under continuous ownership by the same family for more than two centuries, they manufactured a wide variety of products before finally closing in 1949. It's uncertain whether the firm might have operated under other names for some periods of their history.

Warner began making bells in 1788, and continued to do so (with a hiatus between 1816 and 1850) until 1924. Their total production of bells is unknown, but there are approximately 2550 surviving Warner bells that are hung primarily for change ringing, carrying dates from 1788 to 1921. That count does not include most of the bells referenced from the index listing above, nor a goodly number of clock bells, some of which bear the clock-maker's name rather than the Warner name. It also does not count a number of chimes and clock-chimes made of hemispherical bells, nor a few installations of tubular bells.

The Warner foundry (or foundries) operated at various locations in London from before 1782 until about 1924. These locations included Cheapside, Cripplegate (#2 Jewin Crescent, commonly known as the Crescent Foundry), Spitalfields (Spelman Street) and Fleet Street. Warner kept the Jewin Crescent address as their registered office after the Spitalfields location was developed in the 1870s. Other Warner foundries or works were located at Tendring, Essex and at Stockton-on-Tees, where the original Big Ben was cast.

Both the Cripplegate site and the Spitalfields site were badly damaged in WW II, and the land was cleared thereafter. All of Warners' bellfoundry records were also destroyed in that war, so details of their work must be recompiled from secondary sources.

Warners' telegraphic address was "Big Ben, London', and that was in their catalogue for 1900 in spite of the fact that their original casting of that great bell had been long gone (see list above).

Index to carillons and chimes by Warner

John Warner & Sons, London, England

History:

Links: