Whittington chimes

[2] However, evidence suggests it was originally a chime on six bells – a melody that has not been in use at St Mary-le-Bow since 1666.

[citation needed] In 1905, based on what was known about the six-bell version, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford composed a new melody (still called Whittington chimes[3]) that uses 11 out of the 12 bells in the tower of St Mary-le-Bow;[1]: 5  this 11-bell version is the one now used at that church.

[4] The customary English theatre story, adapted from the life of the real Richard Whittington, is that the young boy Dick Whittington was an unhappy apprentice running away from his master, and heard the tune ringing from the bell tower of the church of St Mary-le-Bow in London in 1392.

A short version of the campaign song goes: The twelve bells in the tower of St Mary-le-Bow, cast in 1956, all have inscriptions on them; the first letters of each inscription spell out: The Whittington chimes are less well known than the Westminster (Cambridge) chimes, despite being much older.

The melody was not given the name "Whittington Chimes" on domestic clocks until the late Victorian period onwards.