The passing bell

Under St Mark’s Eve Chambers writes of the passing bell, or soul bell, tolled at the time of a death, a custom he thought as old as church bells themselves. Its first purpose was not simply to tell the neighbourhood of a death but to call on all who heard it to pray for the soul that was passing. The vestry of All Saints, Newcastle upon Tyne, dropped the tolling fee as superstitious from 1643 but restored it in January 1655, the church being short of money, and one parish rule set the clerk’s fee at fourpence by day and eightpence by night.