Peace (Rangimārie) bell
- Width 2720 mm
- Weight 12475 kg
- Note D
Peace
Rangimārie
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.
- Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
This bell is dedicated in commemoration of
the fiftieth anniversary of the end
of World War Two and with thanksgiving to
the people of New Zealand for their service
and sacrifice.
By Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Second.
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.
On 5 November 1995, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II dedicated this bell, the largest of the set, weighing over 12 tonnes. Cast in the world's largest ship propeller foundry in the Netherlands by the famous Whitechapel Bell Foundry of London, it was the largest carillon bell cast anywhere in the world since 1934. As a result of shipping delays it arrived only just in time for the Queen’s visit.
After its dedication by the Queen it was put on show to the public until its installation in the tower of the Carillon the following year.
The bell contains a quote from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem ‘Prometheus Unbound’. Being the largest bell, it also contains text marking the dedication of the four large new bells in 1995–1996 in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War ‘with thanksgiving to the people of New Zealand for their service and sacrifice’.
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