This most interesting item was submitted by Mrs Patricia Boote
Robert George Knowles was born on the 12th of April 1866 at Pinners Place, Madresfield. He was the fifth son of Robert Knowles,journeyman wheelright and Elizabeth Henrietta Knowles, nee Blackwell, who are buried in Madresfield churchyard.
He married Emily Eliza Dewson, a native of Cradley on the 12th August 1887 in Madresfield Church. They had ten children, five boys and five girls. Three of the boys died before reaching the age of fourteen months and the two surviving boys were killed in action during the Great War. Their names are to be found on the memorial tablet on the south side of the Church. The youngest of the children,Anne, died in 1984 thereby ending two hundred and fifty years of Knowles family life in Madresfield village, though the family association continues through the third daughter Alice, the only one of the children to have issue.
Robert George Knowles lived in Madresfield most of his life, at Pinners, where he was born, Glebe Cottage and finally at number 33 in the village where he died. He had a great love for the church at Madresfield which he expressed through his bell ringing activities from the age of fifteen, a gift he inherited from his father. He kept detailed diaries faithfully recording the names of ringers, churches and peels rung both near and far. He records that at 13.12.1881 he was a probationer ringer at St Marys, Hanley Castle where he resided for a short period. He rang at most local churches and as far a field as Gloucester, WestminsterAbbey and St Pauls Cathedral. An entry for 5.9.1886 shows that he rang a peel at Colwall "after walking from Madresfield to Hanley Parish Church,then back to Madresfield and Malvern Link, thence to Colwall". Apart from walking, his only transport was a bicycle.
Peels were rung to celebrate historical events such as the wedding of HRH Princess Mary and ViscountLascelles in 1922, the signing of the Treaty of Peace in 1919, the death of Field Marshall Earl Haig in 1928 and the silver jubilee of King George V in 1935. On the 12th of April 1891 he conducted the bells at Madresfield and rang the first peel of Grandsire Doubles there on the 27th November 1902.
Local events commemorated by peels included the celebration of the 45th anniversaryof the consecrationof the church on 10th November 1912, the first peel on the bells after they were re hung by Messrs Meers and Stainbank on the 10th November 1930, the wedding of the eldest daughter of Earl and Countess Beauchamp on the 16th June 1930, his own silver jubilee of ringing in 1931, and golden wedding on the 11th August 1937.
His last peel recorded on the bells at Madresfield was on the 19th August 1939 before the ban on ringing of church bells which were to be used as a signal of the invasion of the British Isles during the course of the 39/45 war.
He died on the 22nd of September 1942, 16 days after the death of his wife.
Handbells, sadly no longer in the possession of the Church, were used to ring the final peel over his grave which can also be found in Madresfield churchyard. A new memorial tablet has been added as the lettering on the original stone had become badly worn, together with his surviving daughters. A tree planted in the churchyard commemorates over 160 combined years of village life of his youngest daughters Doris and Anne.
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