Big Ben

Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the
Palace of Westminster in London, and is generally extended to refer to the clock or the
clock tower as well. Some believe this extension to be incorrect, but its usage is now
entirely commonplace. It is the largest four-faced chiming clock and the third-tallest free-
standing clock tower in the world. It celebrated its 150th anniversary in May 2009, during
which celebratory events took place. The clock was finished being built on April 10,
1858. The clock tower has become one of the most prominent symbols of both London
and England, often in the establishing shot of films set in the city.
The origin of the nickname Big Ben is the subject of some debate. The nickname
was applied first to the Great Bell; it may have been named after Sir Benjamin Hall, who
oversaw the installation of the Great Bell, or after boxing's English Heavyweight
Champion Benjamin Caunt. Now Big Ben is often used, by extension, to refer to the
clock, the tower and the bell collectively, although the nickname is not universally
accepted as referring to the clock and tower. Some authors of works about the tower,
clock and bell sidestep the issue by using the words Big Ben first in the title, then going
on to clarify that the subject of the book is the clock and tower as well as the bell.
 Chapter 1 – Big Ben As A Whole
The Tower
The present tower was raised as a part of
Charles Barry's design for a new palace, after the old
Palace of Westminster was largely destroyed by fire
on the night of 16 October 1834. The new Parliament
was built in a Neo-gothic style. Although Barry was
the chief architect of the Palace, he turned to
Augustus Pugin for the design of the clock tower,
which resembles earlier Pugin designs, including one
for Scarisbrick Hall. The design for the Clock Tower
was Pugin's last design before his final descent into
madness and death, and Pugin himself wrote, at the
time of Barry's last visit to him to collect the
drawings: "I never worked so hard in my life for Mr
Barry for tomorrow I render all the designs for
finishing his bell tower & it is beautiful." The tower
is designed in Pugin's celebrated Gothic Revival
style, and is 96.3 metres (315.9 ft) high (roughly 16
stories).

The bottom 61 metres (200 ft) of the Clock

Tower's structure consists of brickwork with sand coloured Anston limestone cladding.
The remainder of the tower's height is a framed spire of cast iron. The tower is founded
on a 15-metre (49 ft) square raft, made of 3-metre (9.8 ft) thick concrete, at a depth of
4 metres (13 ft) below ground level. The four clock dials are 55 metres (180 ft) above
ground. The interior volume of the tower is 4,650 cubic metres (164,200 cubic feet).

Despite being one of the world's most famous tourist attractions, the interior of
the tower is not open to overseas visitors, though United Kingdom residents are able to
arrange tours (well in advance) through their Member of Parliament. However, the tower
has no lift, so those escorted must climb the 334 limestone stairs to the top.

Because of changes in ground conditions since construction (notably tunnelling

for the Jubilee Line extension), the tower leans slightly to the north-west, by roughly
220 millimetres (8.66 in) at the clock dials, giving an inclination of approximately 1/250.
Due to thermal effects it oscillates annually by a few millimetres east and west.

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The Clock
Dials

The clock dials are big enough that the Clock Tower was once the largest four-
faced clock in the world.

The dial of the Great Clock of Westminster. The hour

hand is 2.7 metres (9 ft) long and the minute hand is 4.3 metres
(14 ft) long, and the time is 6:20(18:20)

The clock and dials were designed by Augustus Pugin.

The clock dials are set in an iron frame 7 metres (23 ft) in
diameter, supporting 312 pieces of opal glass, rather like a
stained-glass window. Some of the glass pieces may be
removed for inspection of the hands. The surround of the dials
is gilded. At the base of each clock dial in gilt letters is the Latin
inscription: “DOMINE SALVAM FAC REGINAM
NOSTRAM VICTORIAM PRIMAM” which means O Lord,
keep safe our Queen Victoria the First.

Movement

The clock's movement is famous for its reliability. The designers were the lawyer
and amateur horologist Edmund Beckett Denison, and George Airy, the Astronomer
Royal. Construction was entrusted to clockmaker Edward John Dent; after his death in
1853 his stepson Frederick Dent completed the work, in 1854.[12] As the Tower was not
complete until 1859, Denison had time to experiment: Instead of using the deadbeat
escapement and remontoire as originally designed, Denison invented the double three-
legged gravity escapement. This escapement provides the best separation between
pendulum and clock mechanism. The pendulum is installed within an enclosed windproof
box sunk beneath the clockroom. It is 3.9m long, weighs 300 kg and beats every 2
seconds. The clockwork mechanism in a room below weighs 5 tons. On top of the
pendulum is a small stack of old penny coins; these are to adjust the time of the clock.
Adding a coin has the effect of minutely lifting the position of the pendulum's centre of
mass, reducing the effective length of the pendulum rod and hence increasing the rate at
which the pendulum swings. Adding or removing a penny will change the clock's speed
by 0.4 seconds per day.
On 10 May 1941, a German bombing raid damaged two of the clock's dials and
sections of the tower's stepped roof and destroyed the House of Commons chamber.
Architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed a new five-floor block. Two floors are

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 occupied by the current chamber which was used for the first time on 26 October 1950.
Despite the heavy bombing the clock ran accurately and chimed throughout the Blitz.

Malfunctions, breakdowns, and other outages

• 1916: for two years during World War I, the

bells were silenced and the clock face darkened
at night to prevent attack by German Zeppelins.
• Sept. 1, 1939: although the bells continued to
ring, the clock faces were darkened at night
through World War II to prevent guiding Blitz
pilots.
• New Year's Eve 1962: The clock slowed due to
heavy snow and ice on the long hands, causing
the pendulum to detach from the clockwork, as
it is designed to do in such circumstances, to
avoid serious damage elsewhere in the
mechanism—the pendulum continuing to swing
freely. Thus it chimed in the new year 10
minutes late.
• 5 August 1976: First and only major breakdown.
The air brake speed regulator of the chiming
mechanism broke after more than 100 years of
torsional fatigue causing the fully-wound 4 ton weight to spin the winding drum out
of the movement, causing a large amount of damage. The Great Clock was shut down
for a total of 26 days over nine months - it was reactivated on 9 May 1977; this was
its longest break in operation since it was built. During this time BBC Radio 4 had to
make do with the pips. Although there were minor stoppages from 1977 to 2002
when the maintenance of the clock was carried out by the old firm of clockmakers
Thwaites & Reed, these were often repaired within the permitted two hour downtime
and not recorded as stoppages. Prior to 1970 the maintenance was carried out by the
original firm of Dents and since 2002 by Parliamentary staff.
• 27 May 2005: the clock stopped at 10:07 pm local time, possibly due to hot weather;
temperatures in London had reached an unseasonable 31.8 °C (90 °F). It restarted, but
stopped again at 10:20 pm local time and remained still for about 90 minutes before
restarting.
• 29 October 2005: the mechanism was stopped for about 33 hours so the clock and its
chimes could be worked on. It was the lengthiest maintenance shutdown in 22 years.
• 7:00 am 5 June 2006: The clock tower's "Quarter Bells" were taken out of
commission for four weeks as a bearing holding one of the quarter bells was
damaged from years of wear and needed to be removed for repairs. During this
period, BBC Radio 4 broadcast recordings of British bird song followed by the pips
in place of the usual chimes.

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• 11 August 2007: Start of 6-week stoppage for maintenance. Bearings in the clock's
going train and the "great bell" striker were replaced, for the first time since
installation. During the maintenance works, the clock was not driven by the original
mechanism, but by an electric motor. Once again, BBC Radio 4 had to make do with
the pips during this time.

Chapter 2 – The Story of Big Ben

At 9'-0" diameter, 7'-6" high, and weighing in at 13 tons 10 cwts 3 qtrs 15lbs
(13,760 Kg), the hour bell of the Great Clock of Westminster - known worldwide as 'Big
Ben' - is the most famous bell ever cast at Whitechapel. This picture, painted by William
T. Kimber, the head moulder responsible for casting the bell, shows George Mears with
his wife and daughter inspecting the casting prior to despatch. Big Ben was cast on
Saturday 10th April 1858, but its story begins more than two decades earlier....
On 16th October 1834, fire succeeded where Guy Fawkes and his fellow plotters
had failed on 5th November 1605, and destroyed the Palace of Westminster, long the seat
of the British government. Those few bits of the Old Palace that survived the fire - most
notably Westminster Hall, which was built between 1097 and 1099 by William Rufus -
were incorporated into the new buildings we know today, along with many new features.
In 1844, Parliament decided that the new buildings for the Houses of Parliament, by then
under construction, should incorporate a tower and clock. The commission for this work
was awarded to the architect Charles Barry, who initially invited just one clockmaker to
produce a design and quotation. The rest of the trade objected to this, demanding the job
be put out to competitive tender. The Astronomer Royal, George Airy was appointed to
draft a specification for the clock. One of his requirements was that:
"the first stroke of the hour bell should register the time, correct to within one second per
day, and furthermore that it should telegraph its performance twice a day to Greenwich
Observatory, where a record would be kept."
Most clockmakers of the day considered such accuracy unnattainable for a large
tower clock driving striking mechanisms and heavy hands exposed to wind and weather
and lobbied for a lesser specification. However, Airy was adamant that the first
specification be adhered to. Due to this impasse, Parliament appointed barrister Edmund
Beckett Denison as co-referee with Airy. Edmund Beckett Denison, later Sir Edmund
Beckett, the first Baron Grimthorpe, was a difficult man. He was described by one writer
as: "zealous but unpopular, self-accredited expert on clocks, locks, bells, buildings, as
well as many branches of law, Denison was one of those people who are almost
impossible as colleagues, being perfectly convinced that they know more than anybody
about everything - as unhappily they often do."
Denison decided to apply himself to the problem of the clock. It was 1851 before
he came up with a design which could meet the exacting specification. The clock
Denison designed was built by Messrs E.J. Dent & Co., and completed in 1854. The
tower was not ready until 1859, so the clock was kept on test at Dent's works for over
five years. (During that time, Denison invented a new gravity escapement and a trial

5
clock was tested and approved by the Astronomer Royal. This clock is believed to be
now in use as the church clock at St. Dunstan's, at Cranbrook in Kent.)
Next came the bells, and Denison discovered that Barry, now Sir Charles Barry,
had specified a 14 ton hour bell but had made no provision for its production or for that
of the four smaller quarter chime bells. Denison's studies of clocks had included bells and
he had developed his own ideas as to how they should be designed and made.
The largest bell ever cast in Britain up to that time had been 'Great Peter' at York
Minster. This weighed just 10¾ tons, so it is not surprising the bellfounders were wary of
bidding for the contract to produce the new bell, particularly since Denison insisted on
his own design for the shape of the bell as well as his own recipe for the bellmetal. In
both respects his requirements varied significantly from traditional custom and practice.
Eventually, a bell was made to his specification, albeit somewhat oversize at 16 tons, by
John Warner & Sons at Stockton-on-Tees on 6th August 1856, but this cracked
irreparably while under test in the Palace Yard at Westminster. It was then that Denison,
who now had QC after his name, turned to the Whitechapel foundry....
George Mears, then the master bellfounder and owner of the Whitechapel Bell
Foundry, undertook the casting. According to foundry records, Mears originally quoted a
price of £2401 for casting the bell, but this was offset to the sum of £1829 by the metal he
was able to reclaim from the first bell so that the actual invoice tendered, on 28th May
1858, was in the sum of £572. It took a week To break up the old bell, three furnaces
were required to melt the metal, and the mould was heated all day before the actual
casting, the first time this had been done in British bell-founding. It took 20 minutes to
fill the mould with molten metal, and 20 days for the metal to solidify and cool. After the
bell had been tested in every way by Mears, Denison approved it before it left the
foundry.
Transporting the bell the few miles from the foundry to the Houses of Parliament
was a major event. Traffic stopped as the bell, mounted on a trolley drawn by sixteen
brightly beribboned horses, made its way over London Bridge, along Borough Road, and
over Westminster Bridge. The streets had been decorated for the occasion and
enthusiastic crowds cheered the bell along the route.
The bells of the Great Clock of Westmister rang across London for the first time
on 31st May 1859, and Parliament had a special sitting to decide on a suitable name for
the great hour bell. During the course of the debate, and amid the many suggestions that
were made, Chief Lord of the Woods and Forests, Sir Benjamin Hall, a large and
ponderous man known affectionately in the House as "Big Ben", rose and gave an
impressively long speech on the subject. When, at the end of this oratorical marathon, Sir
Benjamin sank back into his seat, a wag in the chamber shouted out: "Why not call him
Big Ben and have done with it?" The house erupted in laughter; Big Ben had been
named. This, at least, is the most commonly accepted story. However, according to the
booklet written for the old Ministry of Works by Alan Phillips: "Like other nice stories,
this has no documentary support; Hansard failed to record the interjection. The Times had
been alluding to 'Big Ben of Westminster' since 1856. Probably, the derivation must be
sought more remotely. The current champion of the prize ring was Benjamin Caunt, who
had fought terrific battles with Bendigo, and who in 1857 lasted sixty rounds of a drawn
contest in his final appearance at the age of 42. As Caunt at one period scaled 17 stone

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(238 lbs, or 108 kilogrammes), his nickname was Big Ben, and that was readily bestowed
by the populace on any object the heaviest of its class. So the anonymous MP may have
snatched at what was already a catchphrase."
In September, a mere two months after it officially went into service, Big Ben
cracked. Once again Denison's belief that he knew more about bells than the experts was
to blame for he had used a hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified by
George Mears. Big Ben was taken out of service and for the next three years the hours
were struck on the largest of the quarter-bells. Eventually, a lighter hammer was fitted, a
square piece of metal chipped out of the soundbow, and the bell given an eighth of a turn
to present an undamaged section to the hammer. This is the bell as we hear it today, the
crack giving it its distinctive but less-than-perfect tone.
Not prepared to admit any error on his part, Denison befriended one of the
Foundry's moulders, plied him with drink, and got him to bear false witness that it was
poor casting, disguised with filler, that had caused the cracking. (A close examination of
Big Ben in 2002 failed to find a trace of filler, incidentally.) With reputations at stake this
led to a court case, which Denison rightly lost. (With all the passion and intrigue
involved, from the commissioning of Big Ben through to the court case, it's surprising
these events have never been turned into a TV drama.) Nor was this the end of the story.
Denison, obviously aggrieved at having lost the court case, continued to badmouth the
Foundry. Twenty years later he was unwise enough to do so in print and this led to a
second libel trial. And he lost that case, too.
In mid-2002, we uncovered a dusty old boxfile bearing a label that read
"Stainbank v Beckett 1881". It contained a complete transcript of the second trial
between the Foundry - this time in the person of founder Robert Stainbank - and Sir
Edmund Beckett Denison. Initially, we thought we'd discovered a transcript of the
original, Big Ben trial. While it's a shame we don't possess a transcript of the first trial (at
least, none we've yet found) there is apparently a copy still extant at the Palace of
Westminster. This may, however, be the only existing transcript of the later trial. That
original, handwritten transcript will be lodged in the Foundry library after a typed record
has been made.
One final point of interest is that the transcript mentions the lawyer for the
Foundry using a small model to demonstrate the principles of bell-casting. This would
almost certainly have been the same small, exquisitely crafted model currently on display
in the Foundry's lobby museum area.Big Ben remains the largest bell ever cast at
Whitechapel.

Chapter 3 - Significance In Popular Culture

The clock has become a symbol of the United Kingdom and London, particularly
in the visual media. When a television or film-maker wishes to indicate a generic location
in Britain, a popular way to do so is to show an image of the Clock Tower, often with a
red double-decker bus or black cab in the foreground. The sound of the clock chiming has
also been used this way in audio media, but as the Westminster Quarters are heard from

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other clocks and other devices, the unique nature of this sound has been considerably
diluted.
The Clock Tower is a focus of New Year celebrations in the United Kingdom,
with radio and TV stations tuning to its chimes to welcome the start of the year.
Similarly, on Remembrance Day, the chimes of Big Ben are broadcast to mark the 11th
hour of the 11th day of the 11th month and the start of two minutes' silence.
ITN's News at Ten opening sequence features an image of the Clock Tower with
the sound of Big Ben's chimes punctuating the announcement of the news headlines, and
has done so on and off for the last 41 years. The Big Ben chimes (known within ITN as
"The Bongs") continue to be used during the headlines and all ITV News bulletins use a
graphic based on the Westminster clock dial. Big Ben can also be heard striking the hour
before some news bulletins on BBC Radio 4 (6 pm and midnight, plus 10 pm on
Sundays) and the BBC World Service, a practice that began on 31 December 1923. The
sound of the chimes are sent in real time from a microphone permanently installed in the
tower and connected by line to Broadcasting House.
Londoners who live an appropriate distance from the Clock Tower and Big Ben
can, by means of listening to the chimes both live and on the radio or television, hear the
bell strike thirteen times on New Year's Eve. This is possible due to what amounts to an
offset between live and electronically transmitted chimes since the speed of sound is a lot
slower than the speed of radio waves. Guests are invited to count the chimes aloud as the
radio is gradually turned down.
The Clock Tower has appeared in many films, most notably in the 1978 version
of The Thirty Nine Steps, in which the hero Richard Hannay attempted to halt the clock's
progress (to prevent a linked bomb detonating) by hanging from the minute hand of its
western dial. In the fourth James Bond film Thunderball a mistaken extra strike of Big
Ben on the hour is designated by criminal organization SPECTRE to be the signal that
the British Government has acceded to its nuclear extortion demands. The gag phrase
"Big Ben! Parliament!" is repeated for comic effect by Chevy Chase in National
Lampoon's European Vacation as the depicted family remains stuck on the Lambeth
Bridge Roundabout. It was also used in the filming of Shanghai Knights starring Jackie
Chan and Owen Wilson, and was depicted as being partially destroyed in the Doctor
Who episode "Aliens of London". An animated version of the clock and its inner
workings were also used as the setting for the climactic final battle between Basil of
Baker Street and his nemesis Ratigan in the Walt Disney animated film The Great Mouse
Detective as well as Peter Pan where Peter lands on the clock before they head to
Neverland. It is shown being destroyed by a UFO in the film Mars Attacks!, by a
prehistoric creature in Gorgo, and by a lightning bolt in the film The Avengers. It is
destroyed on purpose and quite graphically in the movie V for Vendetta. The apparent
"thirteen chimes" detailed above was also a major plot device in the Captain Scarlet and
the Mysterons episode, "Big Ben Strikes Again".
During the 2010 General Election the results of the national exit poll were
projected onto the face of Big Ben.

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