Big Ben is located in the City of Westminster in the heart of London.

Due to its central location, it is

within walking distance to several other London attractions, such as: Buckingham Palace, 1 0 Downing
Street, the London Eye, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.
The nearest Underground Station is Westminster (Circle, District and Jubilee lines). You could also
access Big Ben from Waterloo Station (Bakerloo, Northern, Waterloo and City and Jubilee lines).
The famous tower clock, which is known as Big Ben, is located at the top of the 334-foot-high St.
Stephen's Tower. Nowadays, the tower is officially called Elizabeth Tower, renamed to celebrate
the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 2012.

Address: Westminster, London SW1A 0AA, United Kingdom

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 The tower was raised as a part of Charles Barry's design for a new palace, after the old Palace of
Westminster was destroyed by fire on ,the night of October 1 6. However, 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’s designs, including one for Scarisbrick Hall. The design for Big Ben was, in fact, Pugin's last
design before his final descent into madness and death, and Pugin himself wrote of Barry's last visit to him
to collect the drawings: "I have 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.
The first 61 metres (200 ft) of the structure is the Clock Tower,
consisting of brickwork with stone cladding; the remainder of the tower's
height is a framed spire of cast iron. The tower is founded on a 1 5 metres
(49 ft) square raft, made of 3 metres (1 0 ft) thick concrete, at a depth of 7
metres (23 ft) below ground level. The four clock faces are 55 metres (180 ft)
above ground. The interior volume of the tower is 4,650 cubic metres
(164,200 Cubic metres (164,200 cubic feet).
Due to ground conditions present since construction, the
tower leans slightly to the north-west, by roughly 220 millimetres
(8.66 in) at the clock face, giving an inclination of
approximately
1 /250. Due to thermal effects it oscillates annually by a few millimetres east and west.
For the first 7 feet, there are no windows in the stairwell, since on the South side the
tower is attached to the House of Commons building and on the West Side the
windows must have been omitted to make the union of the tower with the building
stronger. However, we see some window- like openings on the wall of the air shaft.
Initially, these were windows and would have let little light into the stairwell, but they
have now been bricked up. Soon after starting building the Clock Tower, the planned use of the air shaft
changed from taking air rise,so the windows had to be bricked up. After a while, windows appear in two
sides of the aircase. This give views over New Palace Yard towards Parliament Square and over the roof of
the House of Commons chamber.

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 The Prison Room

After climbing a great many steps and passing one door there is
the first room. In the past there has been referred to as the Prison
Room. However, the real Prison Room, though it is in the Clock Tower, is
only accessible from the House of Commons ,not from the Clock Tower
staircase. The Prison Room was designed as a room where errant MP's
(Members of Parliament) could be locked
up if necessary. The last time it was
used was in 1 902 when Emmeline
Pankhurst (one of the first feminists) was
locked because she and her daughters gave the authorities all kinds of
trouble as they protested vigorously for women’s right to vote.
The Prison Room is oak paneled and had a bedroom and sitting
room. On entering we find that the
room is an odd shape with what
seems like a large chimney that
dominated the room. This is formed
by the walls of the weight shaft,
down which the clock weights
descend; it runs all the way from the
clock room to the ground floor. An
alcove faces the chimney on the
right. Behind the weight shaft and
the wall of this alcove runs the air shaft mentioned earlier.
The windows are tall and narrow: on the windowsills are two
artefacts connected with the bell, Big Ben. One is the massive 6 ½
(hundredweight) hammer head that originally tolled the great bell. When the bell cracked, the hammer
head was made lighter. Another is the ball from the clapper that was installed inside Big Ben.

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 Room 4
In "Room 4" visitors can see computer animations of the Great Clock mechanism.The
escapement, chiming, and hour-striking can all be seen. A model of the Great Clock's escapement can
also be inspected.
On display are some of the original wooden patterns used to make cast-iron parts for the Great
Clock. A pattern is a wooden model used to make the appropriate part in iron. A full-size iron pattern was
placed in a special two-part iron box and filled with sand that was rammed down hard. Then the box was
split in two and the pattern carefully removed, leaving a cavity the same shape as the required part. The
cavity was then filled with iron and then the iron part was·removed and machined.
In 1 976, some major work had to be done on the clock; a wooden pattern and a steel wheel
made from it hangs on the wall. This particular wheel was found to have a flaw in the casting, so it
was rejected.

The Clock Room

Moving round to the front of the Clock, visitors can inspect the
general layout. Above the clock there are two massive two-bladed
fans called flies, one for the hour striking train, and one for the
quarter striking trains. Two large iron girders run East-West across
the room. These support the drives to the dials and a lifting winch
that was used to install the clock in 1 859.
Looking at the clock in detail, the visitors can see that the
frame is 1 4 feet long and the wheel work mounted on this is in three
sections. Each end of the frame rests on a pillar; these are made of
brick .
Along the bottom of the frame of the clock runs the inscription:
"This clock was made in the year of our Lord 1854 by Frederick Dent,
of the Strand and the Royal Exchange, Clockmaker to the Queen, from
the design of Edmund Beckett Denison QC." In the center is an oval
plaque that record, "Fixed here 1859".
In the middle of the clock movement is the going train, which
tells the time. A quarter-striking or chiming train on the right sounds
the quarter chimes every 1 5 minutes, while the hour striking train on
the left sounds the hours.
The pendulum is connected to the clock by an
escapement that allows one part of the escape wheel to
advance for every beat of the pendulum. In return, the
clock gives the pendulum a small impulse to keep it
swinging. For the Westminster clock, Edmund Beckett
Denison employed his double three-legged gravity
escapement. This is a unique design and it isolates the
pendulum from variations in power caused by different
weather conditions. The final result in the good
performance of the clock. The pendulum hangs from a
large bracket, which is fixed to the wall. Only the top of
the pendulum is in the Clock Room; the main part of the
pendulum is in a compartment below the clock.
On the front of the clock there are two dials. The white-painted one tells the minutes and
the other one tells the hours from 1to 24. Today, the dial serves no purpose and it is a legacy
from the past, when it was planned to use the clock to turn the dial illumination on and off. A third
dial is mounted inside the clock; this gives the time exact to the second. It has a single hand that
turns once in two minutes, so the dial is engraved from 5 to 60 minutes. In addition, the clock has
two center arbors that turn once each hour.

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 Dials and Clock faces

The clock and dials were designed by Augustus Pugin. Each dial is 7m in diameter and is
made from cast iron. Each dial contains 312 separate pieces of opal glass, a type of glass with an
opaque finish. The hour figure of four o'clock is shown by the Roman numeral IV, rather than IIII,
as is more commonly used on clock dials. The surround of the dials is gilded. Under each clock dial
there is a Latin inscription carved in stone: "Domine Salvam fac Reginam nostrum Victoriam
primam" which means "O Lord, save our Queen Victoria the First."
Every 5 years, the Clock and its dials are inspected for any damage, for example the water
could get near the joints in the actual clock face and if they fall off, in time, it will deteriorate.
The Glass is very special, it is very thin and delicate. I t is called "pot opal glass" . It is one of the
few samples left alongside other part that have been placed in the Clock's basements, because it is no
longer made. Being fragile, it does suffer from bird strikes and when the glass is replaced it takes many
years to bleach. The sunlight actually bleaches i t. The rays, also, throw a shadow of the minute hand
onto the glass. Today, light is provided on each dial by 28 high-efficiency 85 watt bulbs.
The clock faces were once large enough to allow the Clock Tower to be the largest four-
faced clock in the world, but have been outdone by the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. The builders of the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower did not add chimes to the clock, so the
Great Clock of Westminster still holds the title of the "world's largest four-faced chiming clock." The
clock mechanism itself was completed by 1 854, but the tower was not fully constructed until four
years later in 1 858.

Movement
At the time of its construction, 1854, the movement of the Great Clock was much larger than any clock
then in existence and still is among the largest mechanical clocks in the world. The dials and hands of the
clock were also much larger than those of any other in existence. Such large hands, at a height of about 200
feet, have to work against very strong winds and may be covered in freezing snow. Even birds may consider
them an attractive perch and the clock has been slowed by birds in the past. Before the construction of Big
Ben there was no satisfactory method of preventing the influences of the hands being fed back through the
movement and affecting the amplitude of the pendulum's swing, and hence the timekeeping of the clock.
Denison's genius produced the double three-legged gravity escapement which served to isolate the pendulum
from all external influences and made the clock famous for its accuracy.
Despite the movement's apparent complexity, it can be conveniently considered as being in three
distinct sections or 'trains', each powered by their own driving weight:
The going train
This is the section of the clock which advances the hands under the control of the swinging of the
pendulum. It also gives a series of pulses to the pendulum to keep it swinging.
The chiming train
This train operates the hammers for the four quarter chiming bells. It operates four times each hour and
is triggered by the going train.
The striking train
This train operates the very heavy hammer for striking the Big Ben
bell. It is triggered by the going train so that the bell is struck at the
exact moment of the full hour, after the chimes have completed.

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 The three trains are mounted in a cast iron frame which is almost 15 feet long and spans two
pedestals on either side of the clockshaft. Along the base of the front and back of the frame is a long
inscription which reads: 'THIS CLOCK WAS MADE IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1854 BY FREDERICK
DENT OF THE STRAND AND THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, CLOCKMAKER TO THE QUEEN, FROM THE
DESIGNS OF EDMUND BECKETT DENISON Q.C’. [A drawing of the movement by Denison in his book A
Rudimentary Treatise on Clocks, Watches and Bells renders the inscription incorrectly; Denison omits 'the'
before 'Royal Exchange' and has 'design' instead of 'designs'. A more serious error in this drawing,
however, is Denison's association of the wrong countwheels with the striking and chiming trains. Were he
still alive, we would love to see his reaction.] A small plate below this reads "FIXED HERE 1859".

Big Ben, the largest of the clock's bells, is world renowned as a symbol of regularity,due to its
chimes sounding across London every hour.At Midday and Midnight, Big Ben rings out twelve times,
however, using a bit of mathematics of sound and distance it is possible to hear the famous "bong"
thirteen times. The effect of 13 chimes is produced due to the sound from Big Ben travelling at two
different speeds; firstly, over the radio waves of the walkie-talkie and, secondly, as a sound wave
travelling through the air.
Radio waves are a form of electromagnetic wave, which means it travels at the speed of light,
about 300, 000,000 m/s,thus the chime reaches you almost immediately. The speed of sound in air is
much, much slower, 340.29 m/s, so it takes longer for the chimes to reach you through the air. Using
these two facts we can choose a place that is the right distance away in order for the chimes be out of
sequence by one bong . Each bong of Big Ben lasts around 4 seconds. Thus, in order for the chimes to
match up we must be far enough away such that it takes 4 seconds for the sound in the air to get to us.
If we stand 1360m away from Big Ben and use the walkie-talkies as described then the first chime
travelling through the air will be exactly one chime behind those that we hear through the walkie-talkie.
Thus, we will hear 13 chimes from Big Ben.
Legend has it that if Big Ben chimes 13 times the lion statues in Trafalgar Square will awake
from their slumber ... although on this occasion the 'magic' will owe more to specialised animation,
projections and audio feed than to Big Ben.
A team of digital artists have created an animation of the lion's head which will be projected
onto the statue, giving the impression it has been brought to life.
The lion's voice has been recorded by London actor Shaun Escoffery, who plays the role of
'Mufasa' in Disney's award-winning musical The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre.
Visit London, the city's official visitor organisation, created the talking lion as part of a campaign
to attract visitors to the capital over Christmas and New Year.
Big Ben is, of course, in focus on New Year's Eve. Radio and television broadcast the stroke of
midnight all over the country to welcome the New Year. The clock actually strikes 13 times on New
Year's Eve.
Often referred to as 'Big Ben' the bell's chimes are believed to be saying a simple, but
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beautiful prayer.
The melody was originally fitted to the clock of the University Church, St. Mary's the Great,
in Cambridge, England. It comes from a composition by Handel,and is found in the fifth bar of the
magnificent symphony, "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth."
The chimes are believed to be saying this simple but beautiful prayer :
Lord through this hour Be
Thou our guide So, by
Thy power
No foot shall slide.

On 1 6th October 1 834 a fire started, where Guy Fawkes and his fellow plotters had failed on
5th November 1 605, and destroyed the Palace of Westminster.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.
The first clock tower at the Palace of Westminster was built between 1365 and 1367. It stood by
the North wall at the end of the King's Gallery, immediately opposite the entrance to the Great Hall.
The bell of the Westminster clock weighed just over 4 tons and was one of three ordered by King
Edward Ill from John Belleyetere.
The clock was replaced by a new one by Agnes Dalavan in 1 427. (An early example of a lady
clockmaker, and not the only one).
A large part of Westminster Palace burned down in 1 512 just after King Henry VIII and Queen
Katherine had moved in. They moved to Wolsey's residence of York House which was nearby.
Westminster Palace had been rebuilt but was no longer used by the King as his residence. It was now
used only for Parliament meetings and Government offices. As part of the rebuilding, in 1 530, the
clock was renovated and its four clock faces were painted and re- gilded. At that time Parliament,
especially the House of Commons, could meet anywhere in the neighborhood. Before the XVI century,
the Commons might meet up anywhere convenient and that could be anywhere in the country, but
they usually met near Westminster by the time Henry VIII was King.
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 In 1 547, King Edward VI gave the House of Commons, St. Stephen's Chapel, in Westminster
Palace as their permanent meeting place. Both the Lords and the Commons were now usually meeting
at the same time and nearby which enabled more communication. All the business at Parliament was
wound up officially and ceremonially on the last afternoon of the season, by the King (after a big
midday dinner with chosen Lords).
By the end of the XVII century, the clock tower was in a decrepit condition, and in 1 698, it was
demolished. The bell, the Great Edward, was given to St. Margaret's church, and the churchwardens
there sold it to the Dean and Chapter of St.Paul's cathedral, to have it re-cast for their new clock.
In 1 834, most of the Palace of Westminster was yet again destroyed by a fire. The masses of
stored accounts, much of it in the form of wooden tally sticks, had lent fuel to the flames. Little could be
saved. However, at the time, such a loss was unlamented.
A Board of Commissioners was set up to hold a competition for the best design for the new
Palace.
To keep the flavour of the historic building of which (once again) only St. Stephens chapel remained, the
style had to be "Elizabethan" or "Gothic".
The winner, though, was Charles Barry, known to favour the classical style of architecture.
Disappointed contestants pointed out that Barry was known to be a close friend of the Chief
Commissioner of the Board. They were further incensed when Barry's designs were considerably altered,
after they had been selected. One of these new alterations was the addition of a clock tower. The
Contractors, Grissell and Peto, began work on the Clock Tower in 1843.
They started with immense problems. Being situated in marshy ground next to the Thames, the
ground was liquid mud. So they had to start the building by driving piles into the soggy ground to make
a kind of cofferdam for the deep hole they dug.
There was a workman's cafe on the edge of the hole they dug, called Oliver's Coffee House. It
was a home as well as business, to Mr. Oliver Mansfield and his family.
One night at 1 0 o'clock, the cafe toppled over into the hole and sank slowly into the slime.
Fortunately, the owner, Mr. Oliver Mansfield and his family all managed to escape, but they were left
with nothing but the nightclothes they had been wearing. A court enquiry was held, and they were
eventually awarded compensation for the loss of their home, shop and possessions, of £246,700.
The tower was built without scaffolding, a method Barry copied from the tower of Strasbourg
cathedral. Materials were raised with a steam hoist up the inside of the tower.
Now the tower was under way, the architect had to find a clockmaker for the clock to go in it. In
the file on the clock, a letter dated 29th March 1 844,from Charles Barry to Benjamin Vulliamy, Master
of the Company of Clockmakers, requests:

"I shall be obliged to ask whether you would be disposed to inform me with a plan for the Clock which will
be required for the New Palace of Westminster. I propose that the Clock should strike the hours on a Bell
from 8 to 10 ton and if practicable chime the quarters on 8 Bells and show the time upon 4 Dials about 30
feet in diameter."

Vulliamy was delighted. In his reply to Barry he proclaimed:

"The clock I should propose as fit for the purpose would be very much the most powerful eight day
clock ever made in this country."

The construction of the Westminster Clock, attracted the attention of the Astronomer Royal,
George Biddell Airy .
Airy wanted Edward John Dent, a chronometer manufacturer, who recently constructed the large
turret clock on the Royal Exchange, to make the Westminster clock. This clock was to be the Clock for
Parliament, the centre of the Nation, the centre of the Empire. It had to be special. Airy believed the
clock Dent had made for the Royal exchange "to be the best in the world as regards accuracy of going
and of striking." Airy specified that the clock was to be kept as near as possible to Greenwich Time, within
one second.
Dent duly tendered his contract to the Lords Commissioners of Woods and Forests . The First
Commissioner of the Office of Woods and Forests, Viscount Canning, decided that it would be best to
9
 hold a public competition to decide who should make the clock. The conditions were laid down by Airy.
Three clock makers were expected to compete. Besides Vulliamy and Dent, there was John
Whitehurst of Derby. Whitehurst proposed the clock to be regulated in the latest modern way, by
electricity and described his plan to Airy:

"I have constructed a separate piece of clock work to be appended to the Great Clock for the new
Houses of Parliament to break contact with a powerful magnet once every minute to regulate the
other clocks in the new palace on the principle recommended by Mr. Wheatstone."

The first electric clocks had appeared just before 1 840, simultaneously with the electric telegraph.
Both inventions were based on the discovery that electric current deflects a magnetic needle (or
pendulum). The system of an electric clock driving slave clocks, invented by Professor Charles
Wheatstone of King's College, London University (better known as the inventor of the electric telegraph
and the concertina) was too inaccurate and inefficient to be of use at the time. Moreover, until the
development of the electric generator, an electric clock and its slave clocks on the scale needed at the
Palace of Westminster ,would seem to be an impractical proposition, because of the bulkiness of the
battery needed to produce sufficient electric current.
So Airy replied to Whithurst :

"The question of attaching apparatus for effecting the regulation of other clocks by a magneto-galvanic
current, must, for the present, be kept open. The experiments which I have made lead me to doubt the
practicability of this plan . There is no doubt that the regulation would be effected with perfect ease by
means of a galvanic battery, but this is attended with various inconveniences."

But Airy was very interested in the possibilities of using the new electric telegraph to transmit Greenwich
time throughout the country, so he continued:
"The transmission of a signal to Greenwich by a magneto-galvanic current is a matter of no difficulty, and I
recommend that preparation be made for it."

The clock was to be checked by telegraph with Greenwich twice daily.

Edward Dent also discussed the construction of the clock with Airy. He went to France to study the
latest turret clocks there, including those using electricity to regulate the movement of the pendulum. Vulliamy
refused to comply with Airy's specifications. And Barry had to accept that the cheapest estimate should be
accepted, and this was Dent's.
Vulliamy was so annoyed that he tried to claim payment for the work he had put into the designs he had
done. These drawings are in the library of the Institute of Civil Engineers. Because Barry had really wanted
Vulliamy to do the work, he refused to cooperate and work with Dent.
In 1852, Queen Victoria opened the newly built Houses of Parliament, and knighted Charles Barry.
But the architect's troubles were far from over. The clock tower was nowhere near finished. Building had been
held up from lack of funds. Since the Revolutions in Europe of 1848, the Government was pouring its money
into Defence. The Contractors, Grissell and Peto, were replaced by John Jay, because it was cheaper.
In 1852, Edward Dent demanded more money for the clock. He had produced a new specification in which the
works were to be of cost iron. This meant an alteration of the contract.
Then in 1853, Edward Dent died. His stepson, Frederick Rippon, now called himself Dent under the
terms of his stepfather's Will, and took over the contract for the Westminster clock. His name is engraved in
gilded letters on the clock works. However, at the time he had a great deal of difficulty in getting the Government
to accept him as the new clockmaker.
The Board of Works did not only have Frederick Dent to deal with. They, Barry, and Airy, now found
themselves up against the clock designer - a lawyer, Edmund Beckett Denison. As a lawyer as well as
clockmaker, Denison was called as referee on the clock, together with Airy. And he took control of the alcoholic
Frederick Dent. Denison described the work on the Westminster Clock in his popular and still printed work:
"Clocks, Watches and Bells". The first edition, on clocks and watches, had been published in 1850. Denison
imposed forcefully, his ideas and opinions on the building of the clock and engaged in 16 years of acrimonious

10
discussion about this, including a libel action, Stainbank vs. Beckett about the soundness of the hour bell (Big
Ben), which he lost.
When Frederick Dent was dying, in 1860, Denison persuaded him to make his will in favour of Denison,
passing over his mother and sisters, who were in far more need of any money left. This caused a public
scandal.
Early in 1853, Denison and Airy, submitted specifications and drawings of the clock works.
It had been decided to have an hour bell of 14 tons, and 4 quarter bells. The famous chimes were copied from
those of St. Mary's Cambridge.
Denison devised the double three-legged gravity escapement in which the pendulum is kept swinging
by two arms, one at each side. The arms are raised alternately and released gently so that the weight of an arm
bears on the pendulum rod to give it a gentle push in one direction. The other arm impulses it in the other
direction. This prevents pressure on the hands, from wind, snow, or starlings, affecting the pendulum.
The escapement was tried out in a smaller turret clock later installed in Cranbrook Parish Church, Kent.
The clock works were not in the traditional box-shaped iron frame, but on a flat bed, which for the Westminster
clock was 16 feet long and 5 feet wide. This was to be the pattern for subsequent turret clocks. Denison was
very proud of the rough unpolished finish of the clock works, despite comments that it looked like an old mangle,
saying it had considerably cut costs. Unfortunately, if the clock had been as highly polished as was usual, it may
have lasted longer, and the disaster in July 1976 when much of the clock was destroyed.
On May 31st, 1853, Frederick Dent reported that work on the clock had made considerable
progress, and should be completed by February 1854:

"But unless rapid progress is made in the building of the tower it will be impossible to fix the clock
until long after the time named in the contract as the clock cannot be finished and put in action till the
tower is completed and the bells hung. The consequence will be that the works of the clock will have to
be stored away in the meantime in the lower part of the tower as the non-completion of the contract will
be caused by the architect and not by me. I contrive to submit that payment will have to be made for the
clock at the time appointed although the public are deriving no benefit from it."

Frederick Dent had a lot more to say to the Board of Works:

"Sir Charles Barry had represented that the stop page of the works at the tower of which I had complained
was in consequence of his having to wait for the Clock. Mr. Denison replied that was impossible; because
Sir Charles Barry must know perfectly well, that the Clock could not be fixed until the tower was finished,
at least high enough to cover in the clock room; and that the walls were still many feet below the point
where the iron plates are to be fixed and on which the clock is to lie, as shown by the plan and section of
the clock frame and general arrangements send by Mr. Airy and Mr. Denison."

"In last August Mr. Airy wrote to tell me that Sir C. Barry required working plans of the clock frame for his
guidance in carrying up the tower and he desired me to send them. I was at a loss to understand what
further plans Sir C. Barry could require, and I wrote to Mr. Denison on the subject, as all the drawings
have been made by him throughout the business. He replied that M r. Airy had also written to him and
that Mr.
Denson had told him, that Sir C.Barry much explain more distinctly what further information he required,
beyond that given to him by the drawing above mentioned, or whether he had lost them, as he had
previously lost a drawing with reference to the same subject sent to him by Lord Seymour before the
contract was made."

Frederick Dent concluded in anger, after what was an extremely lengthy letter:

"After all this recognition of my being the person engaged in completing this contract, and the great
expense incurred in it, both by the late Mr. Dent and myself. .../ must say, with great respect, I am
astonished at the Commissioners writing to me, 6 months after I had distinctly informed them I was
engaged in completing the work as Mr. Dent's successor, and claiming the right to repudiate the contract
altogether."

11
 Federick Dent had Denison to help fight these battles. In fact Denison seemed to want to run
the whole thing himself. He was supposed to work together with Airy. By November 1853, Airy had had
enough. He wrote:

".....our ideas of the mode of conducting public business are very different, and had at last forced on me
the conviction that we cannot with advantage profess to act in concert."

Denison was happy to keep the Astronomer Royal out, but the Board would not accept Airy's
resignation.
Denison"s letter from 20th March 1 854, follows this up, as well as dealing with the problems of
communicating with the architect:

"...When I met Sir Charles Barry at the Office of Works in May 1852 he showed me a plan of some
alterations which he proposed in the walls and staircase; to which I partly assented and partly objected;
and as soon as I had the opportunity of considering the effect of them upon the plans of the Clock, as
then settled, I wrote to him on the subject. He gave me no copy of the proposed alterations, nor even
answered my letter. And consequentl y, I am now in complete ignorance of the actual or intended
arrangements, and even the size, of the place in which the clock is to be fixed for part of his proposal
was to diminish the size very considerably."

"Mr. Dent, I know, told your Board in his answer to a letter from your secretary last November, that he had
himself written to Sir Charles Barry for information with a view to the preparation of the frame, and that
he also had received no answer."

"I shall therefore merely go on giving Mr. Dent what I consider the proper directions for the construction of
the clock and I shall also advise him not to delay the completion of it any longer, as he had done hitherto
with the view of accommodating it to the progress of the tower."

"And if it afterwards turns out that it cannot be fixed for want of the place to fix it in, or that some
extension and expensive alterations are required to adapt the clock and the clock-tower to each other, I
think Parliament and the public will have little difficulty in deciding which of the various parties concerned
are to blame for the failure, and which are not."

The Attorney General settled the matter in favour of Dent and Denison. In April 1855, the clock
tower was ready to be topped by its decorative cast-iron and stone roof.
The clock was ready. Airy examined the clock at Dent's factory, and told Sir Benjamin Hall, the
First Commissioner of Public Works, that he found it perfectly satisfactory. It was now time to install
the clock and bells.
But although the clock and the tower were ready the bells were not. As the Reverend Alfred
Barry, wrote in his father's biography:

"Much discussion then took place on the question whether the Tower was waiting for the clock, or
the Clock waiting for the Tower. In fact neither of this things were true. Both were waiting for the
Bells!"

The discussion went on for a year until early in 1 856, when Barry, furious at the delay, gave the
order to the contractors to fit the roof on the Clock Tower. A drawing of the clock tower with the roof in
position and mock dials fitted to allow experiments on the lighting of the Clock Face appeared in the
Illustrated London News.
Barry had originally intended that the bells be hauled up on the outside of the tower and fitted
into place. But now the roof was on, the bells and the clock mechanism had to be drawn up inside. The
clock could not be fixed into place until the big hour bell and the four smaller bells were hung into
position at the top.
12
 In August 1 856, the first big bell was cast in Stockton On-Tees. Three months, later, in
November, it arrived in Westminster. Crowds turned up to watch. The bell was immediately rigged up
on a temporary beam in New Palace Yard, near the bottom of the clock tower, and the trials began.
Eleven months later in October, 1857, the bell cracked from top to bottom. It was furiously
smashed to pieces with sledge-hammers and a battering ram.
The next bell had a much better casting. It was made at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry by
Mears, and the foundry is still there. They had it ready for fitting by October 1 858. This was the bell
called "Big Ben", which has given its name to the whole famous clock tower .
The Builder of 1 6th October 1858, has a cross-section drawing of the upper part of the Clock
tower with special scaffolding rigged in the bell-chamber. On the scaffolding is a windlass being turned
by a team of eight men. For men to each side of the windlass. The raising of the bell began early in the
morning of Wednesday 13th October 1858, and this stalwart team continued without a break through
the night until Thursday after, 30 hours non-stop. Big Ben went up on his side in a special cradle which
ran smoothly on wheels up vertical guide gimbers. Progress was about 6 feet an hour, up to 180 feet
which was the level of the clock room.
Big Ben was left in the space reserved for the clock mechanism until the next Thursday, the
21st October, when he was turned up mouth down, and hoisted up to the bell-chamber to join the four
quarter bells. As soon as they got Big Ben into place, they sounded a Royal Salute by striking him 21
times with a wooden beetle. It is not clear how the bell got to be called Big Ben. It was originally called
Great Stephen. Then the Illustrated London News referred to it on 9th October 1 858, as "Big Ben if
such is to be his name?".
Fifteen years had passed since the Westminster clock had been conceived. Denison then a 22
year old law student, was now a Q.C. The new Parliament buildings had been opened by Queen
Victoria and Barry had been knighted. But the public were still waiting for their national timepiece.
The Illustrated London News of 29th January 1859, snidely remarked:

"The Clock Tower stands with its stately grace marred by a patch of unfinished stonework which still clings
to its base, while the elaborate dial places and massive hands, which latter are still motionless and point to
impossible hours, give to the clock, a spectral and ghastly look much as probably hung about the turret and
time-piece of the castle in the fairytale in which all things were struck by that sudden sleep which lasted for
a hundred years ."

It was the Victorian gothic-medieval decoration commissioned from Augustus Welby Northmore
Pugin, which was largely to blame for the building looking like something out of a gothic romance or
horror story. A compromise by Barry who designed a modern building - trendy, fairytale gothic
embellishment desired both inside and out, supplied by Pugin. As the look was fashionable, Pugin was
in great demand for this work. By 1851, his health and sanity broke down and he died aged 40 in 1852,
apparently of syphilis.
Progress was being made - the Illustrated London News reported on 26th February 1859:

"It is understood that the interior of the Clock Tower is approaching completion . The works are all ready.
The arrangements for striking the hours on the great bell are also completed and those for ringing out
the chimes on the smaller bells are in a forward state."

The Times wrote on 23rd April, 1 859:

"Our readers, we are sure, will be glad to learn that the Great Clock of Westminster is at last progressing
towards completion . In saying this we, by no means, intend to convey the impression that the Clock will
soon be going, or that a considerable interval may not elapse before it is completed, or even that it will
ever be completed at all!"

Work was also held up by the inadequacy of the frame. On 2nd March 1859, Denison reported:

"The bells were fixed in the Clock tower but they are let down a little to enable some pieces to be put
in the frame of the nature of diagonal braces to strengthen it against the shake caused by the blow of
13
 the great hammer."

"The frame was not designed by me, though I approved of the design generall y I expressed some doubt
whether diagonal bracing would not be required to resist the blow on the great bell."

"The clock is not fixed because the clock room will not be ready for it until the weight-shaft is properly
covered over, the the pendulum room constructed in it, and the enclosed passage made through the
airshaft, to give access from the clock room and the west dial works. This must also be made of iron
because the airshaft is in fact a chimney; it must be made carefully so as to be airtight, or else the fumes of
the ventilating fire will come into the clock room. It is bad enough to have them discharged into the bell
chamber, a thing which I suppose exists nowhere else in the world ."

The shaft is situated behind the clock works.

Meanwhile the public was getting impatient: Punch, 5th May 1859:

"That idle clock at Westminster which may well hold its hands before its face for very shame,
had cost the Nation the pretty little sum of £22,057. We never knew a richer illustration of the homely
truth that Time is Money".

When the clock actually did begin to tick, the Press ignored the event, perhaps because, quite
rightly as it turned out, they did not expect that state of affairs to continue.
A letter in The Times of 13th July, 1859, complained that the noise from Big Ben was
rather a disappointment. An official report had said its note was pure enough, but complained of
"the funereal slowness of its strokes" .
An email received 23rd August 2013, from Peter Vince, contains very interesting information
about the ironwork for the massive clock dials and the roof.

Big Ben and the history of the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster.
Extract from email from Peter Vince:
"I have just read your absorbing article on the above item. I have for more years than Icare to
remember had a personal interest in the history of the Great Clock, and have collected much
technical and detailed information over that time. But for the first time, to my knowledge, an
historic account of the building and its contents in a form that is both informative and enjoyable
to read....Thank you.
In case you might be interested, my own curiosity was fueled by the fact that my grandfather, Robert
Vince, a Master Blacksmith from Downham Market, Norfolk, came to London to work for a company
in the City responsible for making the dials and original hands for the Great Clock. I struggled for a
long time, with help from people at the Parliamentary Archives, to find the name of the company but
without success. However, I eventually received the following email from Dr. Mark Collins:
"Dear Mr. Vince,
I have recently been sent a copy of The Times for 13 November 1 857 which says: Every dial
frame was cast in six segments by Mr. James, and each one weighs four tons.
So the dials must have been made at Jabez James workshop in Broadwall, Lambeth, which
lies between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge.
J. James also made the cast iron segments of the roof of the Clock Tower.
Kind
Regards,
Mark
Dr. D.M.Collins
Estates Archivist and Historian
Parliamentary Estates
Directorate."
"Sadly, like Mr. Dent, Robert never lived to see the real item installed and working, but we are
still proud descendants. "

14
 As mentioned earlier, it is only when you are up there and walking round inside the clock face,
that you realize just how big the four great glass dials of the clock face are. Peter Vince's research
gives more insight into the amount of work and organisation the craftsmen needed for this clock tower.
Which leads us on to the problems with the huge clock hands needed for dials this size.
The clock had only been going for one month, when it was found that the hands, designed by and
insisted on by Barry, were too heavy.
Barry was furious when Denison insisted on replacing Barry's beautiful ornate and gilded clock
hands with plain, but functional hands designed by himself.
Barry had stated originally:

"I have no wish whatsoever, to identify myself in any respect with the works of the Clock, over which I
have never had any control, I beg to suggest the hands should be provided under the direction of Mr.
Denison."

This did not stop Barry arguing that his clock hands were perfectly all right, and getting his clerk
of the Works to stop Dent's men taking away his hands to replace them with Denison's more practical
design. A battle took place at the clock tower between Barry's men and Dent's men.
Barry sent detailed diagrams to try to prove the effectiveness of his clock hands. He asked for
one of the original hands to be left on to prove it was satisfactory. He insisted that one of the hands be
weighted in a public demonstration. This was performed on the 29th September 1 858, and Denison
was proved right. It seemed that it only remained to clean up the dust made in installing the gas
pipes for the illumination of the glass dials, 24 feet (7.3152 metres) across; the regulation of the
clock itself; and the repair of the hands of the south dial, the last to be dealt with.
Frederick Dent, by now in very poor health, presented his bills for payment on the completion of
the clock. Then Big Ben was found to have developed a great crack! It did not appear to affect the tone
too much, so the bell was turned round and a lighter hammer fitted. The huge crack can be easily seen,
but after 1 50 years, the bell which was to become an iconic symbol of the Nation and its defence against
its enemies, is still ringing out the hours.
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, it was uncovered a dusty old box file 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, people thought
they would discovered a transcript of the original Big Ben trial. 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.

15
 The tower is officially known as Elizabeth Tower, renamed to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee
of Elizabeth II in 2012; previously it was known simply as the Clock Tower. One of Britain's best-
known landmarks was renamed in honour of the Queen's six decades on the throne, Parliament's
authorities announced. In an extraordinary tribute to the Monarch, the tower housing Big Ben is now
called 'The Elizabeth Tower'.
David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are among senior figures from all parties who
backed the proposal, which mirrors an honour bestowed on Queen Victoria, the present Queen's
great-great grandmother and the only other monarch in history to mark a Diamond Jubilee.
The square tower at the other end of the Palace of Westminster, previously known as The
King's Tower, was renamed The Victoria Tower to mark her long reign.
The House of Commons Commission, Parliament's ruling body, and Speaker John Bercow
discussed the change and decided to give it the green light.
The tower, formally known as The Clock Tower, will bear the Queen's name in perpetuity.
The proposal has proved controversial, causing huge debate on social networking site, Twitter. Many
people misunderstood the idea-and thought Big Ben itself - the name of the famous bell - might be
changed.
In fact, it is the name of the 334 foot tower - one of the most well-known symbols of London
and the United Kingdom around the world - that will be amended. MPs accept it will continue to be
known colloquially as Big Ben, the name of the famous bell it houses, but say the tower itself should
carry the name of Queen Elizabeth II.
More than half of all MPs - including the Tories' William Hague, Theresa May and lain Duncan
Smith, Labour's David Blunkett, Jack Straw and Ed Balls, and the Lib Dems' Danny Alexander, David
Laws and Chris Huhne - supported a campaign for the name change, backed by the Daily Mail. Both the
Cabinet Office and Buckingham Palace are understood to have supported the proposal, with the Queen
said to be touched and moved by the honour.
A spokesman for the House of Commons Commission said: 'The commission welcomed
the proposal to rename the Clock Tower Elizabeth Tower in recognition of The Queen's
Diamond Jubilee, and will arrange for this decision to be implemented in an appropriate
manner in due course.'
Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, a Parliamentary private secretary at the Foreign Office who first
proposed the idea, said:
'I am extremely pleased that colleagues from across the House, both front and back bench, have
supported this initiative.'
'Commemorating an iconic landmark as famous as Parliament is indeed a truly exceptional tribute
and I am grateful that the majority of MPs believe the Queen deserves such an outstanding
accolade.'
'O f all the forty-one monarchs who have reigned over England and the United Kingdom since
William the Conqueror, only Her Majesty and Queen Victoria have reached this Diamond Jubilee
landmark .'
'She has travelled more widely than any other head o f state in history, and is arguably the most
respected and admired public figure in the world.'
'It therefore seems entirely appropriate for Parliament to pay tribute to Her Majesty with a similar
honour, and in symmetry, to that bestowed upon Queen Victoria, by dedicating part of the iconic
Parliamentary estate in her name.'
Prime Minister David Cameron said: 'The renaming of the Clock Tower to the Elizabeth Tower
is a fitting recognition of the Queen's sixty years of service. This is an exceptional tribute to an
exceptional Monarch and the result of an excellent campaign by Tobias Ellwood.'
Labour leader Ed Miliband said: 'It's great news that the Clock Tower is being renamed in honour of
Her Majesty the Queen.
'Members of Parliament from all parties have rightly recognised
Queen Elizabeth's lifetime dedication and tireless service to the people
of Britain and the entire Commonwealth.'
Leader of the Commons Sir George Young said:'There can be
no more fitting way for Parliament to commemorate Her Majesty's total
dedication to her nation's service over 60 extraordinary years.'

16
 But Graham Smith, chief executive of the anti-Monarchy
pressure group Republic, struck a dissenting note, saying the
tribute was 'completely inappropriate'.
'Parliament is supposed to be the home of British
democracy and it shouldn't be sullied by these associations
with an undemocratic, hereditary institution,' he said.
'The fact the Queen supports the idea shows the
contempt she has for British democracy. If she supported
British democracy she would be telling MPs not to do this.'
The Speaker's wife, Sally Bercow, expressed doubts,
writing on Twitter: 'No, renaming of clock tower can't happen.
Big Ben boinging away inside the # ElizabethTower - I mean
really?'
MP Paul Flynn also opposed the idea, suggesting
instead that the tower should be renamed 'Big Benn' in honour of socialist firebrand Tony Benn.
Big Ben is the nickname for the Clock Tower, but is properly the name of the 13.5 tonne bell it houses.
The Gothic Revival tower, completed in 1858, holds the largest four-faced chiming clock in the world.
The clock dials are set in an iron frame 23 feet across, with a Latin inscription at the base of each
reading 'DOMINE SALVAM FAC REGINAM NOSTRAM VICTORIAM PRIMAM'. It means 'Lord, keep safe our
Queen Victoria the First'.
Designed, like the rest of the Palace, by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin, it was originally named
'The King's Tower' because the fire of 1834 occurred during the reign of King William IV. It was renamed in
honour of Queen Victoria's long reign.
At the base of the tower is the Sovereign's Entrance, so-named because the Monarch uses it to enter
the Palace for the State Opening of Parliament. St Stephen's Tower is the smaller tower in the centre of the
Palace.

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 11 th hour of the 11 th day of the 11 th month and the start of two minutes' silence.
For years ITN's "News at Ten" began with an opening sequence which featured the Clock Tower and
Big Ben with the chimes punctuating the announcement of the news headlines. The Big Ben chimes are still
used today during the headlines and all ITV News bulletins use a graphic based on the Westminster clock face.
Big Ben can also be heard striking the hour before some news bulletins on BBC Radio 4 (6:00 P.M. and
midnight, plus 10:00 P.M. on Sundays) and the BBC World Service, a practice that began on December 31,
1923. The chimes are transmitted live via a microphone permanently installed in the tower and connected by
line to Broadcasting House.
Big Ben can be used in the classroom to demonstrate the difference between the speed of light and
the speed of sound. If a person visits London and stands at the bottom of the clock tower, they will hear the
chimes of Big Ben approximately one-sixth of a second later than the bell being struck (assuming a bell height
of 55 metres).
However, using a microphone placed near the bell and transmitting the sound to a far away destination
by radio (for instance New York City or Hong Kong), that location will hear the bell before the person on the
ground. In fact, if the recipient were to echo the sound back to the observer on the ground, the bell would be
heard on the radio before the natural sound reached the observer. (Example: New York City is 5,562 kilometres
(3,456 mi) from London, and radio waves will reach New York in
0.018552 seconds; round trip is 0.037105 seconds, compared to 0.1616
seconds for the natural sound to reach the ground.)
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
17
radio or television, hear the bell strike 13times on New Year's Eve. This is possible due to the one strike offset
between live and electronically-transmitted chimes. Guests are invited to count the chimes aloud as the radio is
gradually turned down.
An image of the clock tower was also used as the logo for London Films.
In Japan, Big Ben's chime is used as the chime for school bells from kindergarten to university. Cultural
references.
The clock has become a symbol for the United Kingdom and London, particularly in the visual media.
When a television or film-maker wishes to quickly convey to a non-UK audience a generic location in Britain, a
popular way to do so is to show an image of the Clock Tower,often with a Routemaster bus or Hackney
carriage in the foreground .This gambit is less often used in the United Kingdom itself, as it would suggest to
most British people a specific location in London,which may not be the intention.
The sound of the clock chiming has also been used this way in audio media, but as the Westminster
Quarters are heard from other clocks and other devices, the unique nature of this particular sound has been
considerably diluted.
Big Ben in films and popular culture

1. Peter Pan, Walt Disney 1953

In this animated film adaptation of JM Barrie’s Peter

Pan, The Boy Who Never Grew Up, Peter Pan, Wendy,
John and Michael Darling stop on the hands of Big Ben
to get their bearings in order to find Never Land. Also, at
the end, a small replica of Big Ben is seen in the Darling
household.

2. Thunderball, 1965
Thunderball is the fourth film in the 007 James Bond series, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent.
The evil eye-patched head of Spectre reveals that he is in possession of two Nato bombs, and demands a
ransom from the British government of £100 million, otherwise he will destroy an unspecified city. To signal their
co-operation, Big Ben was to chime seven times at 6pm the following day.

3. HP Brown Sauce Original, 1903-present

HP stands for Houses of Parliament, as it was

rumoured the sauce was used in a restaurant there.
Launched in 1903, the bottle has always featured Big
Ben on its label. It would take 6,189 bottles of HP
stacked on top of each other to equal the height of
the tower!

4. A London Symphony, Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1912-13

18
With the chimes of Big Ben rising through the opening bars of Vaughan Williams’s London Symphony, it
speaks of a city still recognisable today. Written on the eve of the Great War, the symphony seems to reflect a
passing imperial world.

5. Mary Poppins, Walt Disney 1964

In Disney’s musical adaptation of PL Travers’s Mary

Poppins, the magical governess floats past Big Ben,
clutching her umbrella. It also appears in the opening
credits, in a twilight view of London’s skyline.

6. Doctor Who: Aliens of London, 2005

In the fourth episode of Series One, The Doctor's

assistant Rose returns home from a mission thinking
she has been away for a couple of days, but it turns
out to have been a whole year. Before she can explain
to the Doctor, a spaceship crashes into Big Ben,
causing a worldwide catastrophe.

7. The Thirty-Nine Steps, 1978

19
The Thirty-Nine Steps refers in the film to the number of stairs in Big Ben’s clock tower. In the final sequence of
this 1978 thriller, the main character Richard Hannay holds onto Big Ben’s clock hands for dear life.

8. 28 Days Later, 2002

Set in the contemporary post-apocalyptic United Kingdom,

this Danny Boyle horror film follows the disintegration of
society following the accidental release of a highly
contagious virus that turns its unlucky victims into raging
zombies. This still shows Jim (Cillian Murphy) wondering
past the Houses of Parliament in London’s deserted streets.

20