Page 355 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

Part Five
The Dewsbury Knell
The tradition of the Devil’s Knell dates back to 1434 when a nobleman called Sir Thomas de Soothill murdered a young servant in a fit of rage. He grabbed the boy and threw him into a mill pond, where he drowned. Overwhelmed by remorse at the murder, and as an act of penance, de Soothill paid for a new 1300lb tenor bell for the parish church, now Dewsbury Minster. And so Sir Thomas started the tradition that the bell (named Black Tom) should be rung on Christmas Eve, with one toll for each year of the Christian era (eg 2013 times in 2013), to proclaim the defeat of evil and the forgiveness of all sins, not just his own. Since then the bell has sounded every year, except during the war.
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In 1986, the Royal Mail’s Christmas stamps featured on the 31p stamp a picture representing the tolling of Black Tom.
Royal Mail Christmas 1986 stamps
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