Accession Number

2025.002.002

Alternate Name

call bell

Description

One silver bell with a turned ebony handle. The bell bears no hallmarks. It is engraved: “Mary” from Reg Xmas 1927 - in handwritten script. The bell metal is not thick and is therefore slightly misshapen from handling.

Narrative

This call bell was commissioned by Reginald Spencer Chaplin and given by him to his sister-in-law, Mary Jean Dunsmuir (aka Mrs. Henry Croft). Mr. Chaplin was married to Mary’s sister, Henrietta Maud Dunsmuir. Mr. Chaplin provided the silversmith with a handwritten message to Mary which the silversmith then engraved onto the bell.

History of Use

This call bell was commissioned by Reginald Spencer Chaplin, who was married to Mary Croft’s sister, Henrietta Maud Dunsmuir. He gave it to Mary for Christmas in 1927 when she was in failing health. She used it at her house Mt. Adelaide, which once sat beside West Bay, an area of Victoria’s Inner Harbour in Esquimalt, B.C. Mary died in 1928.

Mary’s health was failing in 1927. She used the bell to call for help, and probably kept the bell on top of her invalid’s table which is already in Craigdarroch’s Primary Collection (see: https://collection.thecastle.ca/Detail/objects/6818)

After Mary’s death in 1928, the bell was inherited by her sister Elizabeth Hamilton Dunsmuir’s granddaughter, Lucy Lenore Bryden (1907-1997), who used it at her Gartley Road beach house in Royston, B.C. It was donated to Craigdarroch by Lucy Lenore Bryden’s son in 2025. 

Date

1927

Dimensions

12 x 6.2 cm

Material

Metal, silver; Wood, ebony

Technique

Engraved; Hammered; Soldered; Turned