Plague hand-bell

This is a bell from the 1600s. It may have been rung by a bellman to announce the collection of the dead on carts that were pulled around the city streets during outbreaks of plague. According to a letter written by Samuel Herne in July 1665, in the parish of St Giles-in-the-Fields so many people died that the bell rang almost continuously. This upset people so much that the decision was made to stop the bell ringing altogether. Burials were supposed to be at night. Only six people were allowed to go to each funeral. As so many people died during the Great Plague of 1665 (thousands every week), burials happened all day long. One man wrote ‘Death stares us continually in the face; in every coffin which is daily and hourly carried along the street. The bells never cease to remind us of our mortality.’