The London Traveler

Big Ben recently celebrated his birthday -  and so I thought it was time for a post on possibly the most famous of all London icons.

Lots of people call the big clock tower of the Houses of Parliament ‘Big Ben’. But this is wrong; it’s the bell, all 13 tons or so, which is called Ben.

No one knows for sure how he got his nickname. (Officially he’s “the Great Bell”.) He’s said to have been named after Sir Benjamin Hall, who was the commissioner of works for the new Palace of Westminster, rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1844; but some people also say he was named after a famous boxer.  Anyway, he’s been Ben practically since he was installed – and he’s now 150.

The Victorian age was one which believed in progress. So the specifications for both the clock and the bell to chime the hours were intended to surpass anything ever before seen. The clock was to be accurate within a second, and the bell was to be the largest ever cast in England.

Big Ben easily outclassed Great Peter, of York Minster. Peter weighed in at only ten and three-quarter tons -  Ben was more than fourteen tons.

Unfortunately as so often, pride came before a fall. The bell was cast by Warner’s of Stockton on Tees, and brought to London – but while it was being tested out, it cracked, and had to be taken to Whitechapel Bell Foundry in the East End to be recast.

He was finally finished on April 10th, 1858 – though he didn’t sound for the first time till a year later. And then, the bell cracked again. It’s still cracked – emergency repairs worked, and the bell was rehung so that the hammer didn’t hit the crack.

Now, Big Ben’s sonorous ‘bong ‘ is known across the world – it headlines ITV’s News at Ten, and is broadcast on BBC radio too.

And here’s a nice piece of trivia. Big Ben was silenced last year for a spot of maintenance to be carried out – which I did know; and a ‘dead ringer’ at Rochdale Town Hall stood in for him – which I didn’t.

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