St John's Cathedral, Brisbane
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Celebrating Women Ringers
Brisbane Ringers. Photo Harold Bartlett
On Monday night, 9 March 2026, the ringing chamber at St John’s was filled almost entirely with women ringers.
Rebecca, Carol and Annabel are learning to ring, while Heather is progressing to ringing rounds and call changes. Liz and Rosemarie are refining their technique and beginning to master Little Bob Minor. All of this took place under the watchful guidance of Kellie and Rachel, with Harold - the only man present - capturing the moment in a photo.
It was a wonderful practice night celebrating women learning, developing and ringing together - and, quite coincidentally, it happened to fall close to International Women’s Day!
Liz Hodgkinson
Brisbane 25th Anniversary Peal
A peal of Plain Bob Major was rung on Saturday, 4th May 2013, at St John's Cathedral (close to the 25th anniversary of the first ever tower-bell peal in Brisbane on 30th April 1988), followed by an excellent dinner, a QP of Grandsire Caters the next day (the first caters by a resident Queensland band), and no doubt more to come.
David Smith 4, Rachel Aland 5, Steve Skitmore 3, Patrick Johns 6, Kellie Hajek 2, Ed Gosden 7, Robert Wirth 1, Ian McCulloch 8 (C)
The peal was rung on the same bells as the original peal, and was 5072 Plain Bob Major, and the first peal for Steve Skitmore.
David Smith
Brisbane Peal congratulations
Congratulations to Kellie Hajek on her first peal on 1st January 2012, at St John's Cathedral, Brisbane (5040 Grandsire Triples). This was the world's first peal for 2012, and as Kellie started ringing only mid-way through 2011, it was also her first day as a member of ANZAB.
The Band, 1-8: Ian McCulloch, Kellie Hajek, Emma Hadfield, Robert Weatherby jnr, Patrick Johns, Doug Nichols, Matthew Sorell (C), David Smith.
First Peal on Twelve at St John's, Brisbane, 25 September 2010
5059 Grandsire Cinques in 3 hours 22 minutes.
The band: 1 James Smith, 2 Lexi Prabhakar, 3 James Perrins, 4 Kathi Downs, 5 Penny Sharpe, 6 David Bath, 7 Thomas Perrins, 8 Ian McCulloch, 9 Andrew Davies, 10 David Phillipson, 11 Ian Harris (c), 12 Roger Lubbock.
Brisbane's Twelve rings for the first time
This afternoon (14 March 2009), a band of 12 local ringers, accompanied by Bob and Ruth Smith, rang the first changes on the newly augmented 12 at St John's Brisbane. The occasion coincided with a wedding, and we obtained special permission to ring for longer than usual (the sound control is not quite finished yet, so the length of time we can ring open is still restricted). We had an excellent session of 10 & 12 bell ringing, including some quite respectable call changes on the 12, plain bob royal, and some plain hunt on 11.
Count the ringers!
The two new trebles are a decent weight (4-3-8 and 5-0-26, compared with the old treble of 5-1-2), so match the existing 10 very well, and are quite easy to hear from around the back, although they are a little quiet overall - hopefully they will be louder once the clappers are worn in a bit. The volume in the ringing room is a bit too loud, so conductors need a very strong voice! The acoustics are continually changing with all of the building work going on, so it is difficult to predict what sound control measures will be required to lessen the noise in the ringing room. But this should all be completed by the time of ANZAB09 in June. So I look forward to seeing you all there! Don't forget to register early!
L to R: Ruth Smith, Robert Wirth (tower captain), Sheila Charles, Lynne Healy, Tim Essex, Reg Toze, Harold Bartlett, Ian McCulloch (ringing master), Peter Healy, Patrick Johns, Mike Toze, David Smith, David Arrowsmith, Bob Smith.
Ian McCulloch
St John's Brisbane Consecrated, 2009
From Robert Wirth ...
Following a construction period of some 103 years our Cathedral finally reached the stage of completion. The bellringers were very much a part of the Consecration Festival Community Celebration.
On Thursday 29th October 2009, the first peal on the bells since their installation in the Central Tower, was rung as part of the celebrations. The peal, 5056 of Plain Bob Major composed by John R Pritchard, came round in 3 hours and 17 minutes with the help of some skillful conducting by Ian McCulloch.
The Band: 1 Mike Toze, 2 Harold Bartlett, 3 Anne Etchells, 4 David Arrowsmith 5 Peter Healy, 6 David Smith, 7 Robert Wirth, 8 Ian McCulloch (c)
In special tribute, the band dedicated the first peal on the bells in their final home, to the memory of the late Ron Lang [1928 - 2008] who rang in the bell towers of St Johns from 1945 to 1997. Ron's service to bellringing began in the old wooden tower, sometimes called the old garden shed, until the bells moved to the North West tower in 1988. Ron had been Tower Captain from 1963 until his retirement in 1997. Unfortunately an untimely accident prevented Ron from visiting the Central Tower after the installation of the bells.
Following on from our efforts on the Thursday afternoon we soldiered on to be part of the Cathedral Consecration Service. We rang the bells for 30 minutes prior to the 7pm start. Rang them again for 1 minute immediately following the announcement by the Archbishop that "The Cathedral is now Consecrated" and then again at the end of the service which finished around 9.30pm. Thanks to all our bellringers for their mighty effort - especially those for the 7 1/2 hours stint. Hope the blisters heal soon! In sympathy - it has all been for a good cause.
notes
This page supplements the ANZAB Tower Directory, and records further information about the tower, its bells and ringers.
Some of this has been provided by local ringers, but most is historical and has been gathered by the ANZAB Webmaster since 2002.
Tower officers are encouraged to submit material for inclusion on this page, or suggest changes to its content.
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