Grace (Aroha) bell

  • Width  2145 mm
  • Weight  6458 kg
  • Note  G
Bell Inscription

Grace (Aroha)
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring out the false, ring in the true,
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.’
 - Tennyson, In Memoriam

To the Glory of God
This bell is dedicated in commemoration of
the fiftieth anniversary of the end
of World War Two.
Anno Domini 1995.

In 1995 four new bass bells were ordered for the National War Memorial Carillon to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Their installation provided new notes for the instrument and finally completed the Carillon, making it the third largest in the world. 

This bell, 'Grace Aroha', was the first of the four to be installed. No high-tech machinery was used in its installation, the procedure in 1995 being the same as it was more than 60 years earlier when the Carillon was built. As National Carillonist Timothy Hurd explained at the time, it is not a complicated process, but only one bell can be moved at a time:

The bells are raised by a very serious adjustable spanner and human power … The two existing bass bells have to be removed first. Then a complicated dance starts of moving bells up, down and sideways. The bells are lifted over 30m from the ground. Each pull on the chain hoist moves the bell 4mm. After the two existing bells are dismounted, then all six repositioned, that's 45,000 full-length pulls.

This bell weighs six tonnes, and had to be flown to New Zealand to make it in time for its dedication ceremony by Prime Minister Jim Bolger on 15 August 1995, the 50th anniversary of what is known as Victory over Japan (VJ) Day, which signalled the end of the Second World War. After the dedication a service of remembrance was held in the Hall of Memories during which time Hurd tolled the bell five times. 

Inscribed on it are lines from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem ‘In Memoriam’, considered to be one of the finest poems of the 19th century.

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