--- title: "English town crier Brenda Willison sets Guinness record for loudest shout by a woman at 105.9 decibels" url: https://badiyaa.com/brenda-willison-town-crier-loudest-shout-woman-record/ published: 2026-11-09T08:09:00+00:00 modified: 2026-11-09T08:09:00+00:00 section: Offbeat publisher: Badiyaa --- # English town crier Brenda Willison sets Guinness record for loudest shout by a woman at 105.9 decibels Guinness World Records certified the September 9 cry of 'oyez' on November 4. Willison, a town crier since 1987, says she had a cold that day and can go louder; the men's best is listed at 122.4 decibels. English town crier Brenda Willison bellowed “oyez” at 105.9 decibels on September 9, and Guinness World Records has now certified it as the record for the loudest shout by a woman. She says she had a cold at the time. The reading, taken with C-weighting, earned her two titles in one breath: loudest town crier (female) and loudest shout by an individual (female). Guinness, which announced the records on November 4, 2026, likens the level to standing beside a snowblower or a blaring car horn. Visitors to Newmarket in Suffolk, it adds, may well hear her before they see her. Willison thinks she left volume on the table. “I believe I wasn’t at my best today because I’m full of cold and I’m sure I’ll be able to get louder,” she told the record keeper. ## A daughter’s secret letter She has been crying since 1987, a run of 39 years. Her school reports had already flagged a habit of being loud in class. The career began with a newspaper advert and a family plot. Willison was living in Peterborough and running the catering at a country park whose two cafés sit a mile and a half apart. The local paper asked who could be the city’s town crier. > “Unbeknown to myself, my daughter who helped out at the park sent in a letter saying that if I stood outside one café and shouted ‘chips’ they’d be able to hear me in the other.” She got the post. It took her to Buckingham Palace, where she cried for the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday and later for Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday and Platinum Jubilee. She has appeared at the Tower of London in an official capacity. In 1995 she delivered a cry for peace at the bridge over the River Kwai. Guinness adjudicator Emma Salt handed over both certificates, then borrowed the hat and bell and tried a triple “oyez” of her own. Willison’s review: “Actually, I don’t think you need any lessons.” ## How 105.9 decibels stacks up The men’s numbers run higher. Alan Myatt held the loudest-crier record at 112.8 decibels until it was beaten, and Joseph McGrail-Bateup, the honorary town crier of Canberra, Australia, [is credited with 122.4 decibels in 2026](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_crier). That gap is bigger than it looks, because the decibel scale is logarithmic: every 10 decibels is a tenfold jump in sound intensity. The working: 122.4 minus 105.9 leaves 16.5 decibels, and 10 raised to the power 1.65 is roughly 45. On paper, the Canberra shout carried about 45 times the sound intensity of Willison’s. On paper is the catch. Readings like these depend heavily on how the meter is set and where it stands. At the 2010 British Town Crier Championship, the instrument firm that took the measurements logged the loudest competitor, Michael Wood of the East Riding of Yorkshire, at 105.4 decibels on an A-weighted maximum setting from 2 meters away. The same cry peaked at 111.7 decibels on the C-weighted scale. One voice, two figures, 6.3 decibels apart. Guinness’s announcement gives the weighting for Willison’s shout but not the distance to the meter, so any head-to-head with the men is a rough guide and no more. ## A medieval job with a small modern roster Criers were once the news itself. In medieval England, with many townspeople unable to read, a bellman announced royal proclamations, bylaws and market days in the street. “Oyez” comes from the Anglo-Norman word for listen. Harming a crier counted as treason, since every announcement was made in the monarch’s name. Women have held the post for centuries. Beetty Dick, born in 1693, cried the news in Dalkeith, Scotland, and three more women followed her there. By October 2010, 144 towns in England and Wales had criers registered with the Ancient and Honourable Guild of Town Criers, most of them ceremonial. Willison argues women are the better fit anyway. A crier has to hold volume and stay clear, she told Guinness, and some men are loud but too growly to be understood: “I think ladies have an advantage because their voices are a lot more musical and much clearer.” The two certificates are headed for a wall at home. “I’m absolutely amazed and thrilled to have reached these records and I’m going to hang the certificates with pride in our house,” she said. ## Further reading - [Wikipedia: Town crier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_crier) *Image: Jack1956, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*