Big Ben

The Clock of the Londoners

Table of Contents:

Argument...4
Introduction..5
I. The Time...6
II. Big Ben-The Tower.....7
III. The History of Big Ben.9
IV. The Bell...12
V. Big Ben at Present..13
Conclusion..16
Bibliography17

Argument

I have chosen to focus on Big Ben in order to present the history and the importance of one of
the most famous Tower-Clock in the world, which has persisted since 150 years ago. Big Ben is a
symbol of persistence in time, because it was not completely shut down despite the attempts it
faced during its existence.
What impressed me regarding this is its greatness- it is approximately 96 meters high, and what
is most surprising, the tower has no elevator, so, if you want to reach the top, you should climb
334 stairs.
Another amazing particularity of the tower is the base of the face's bears a Latin inscription
meaning "Lord save our Queen Victoria I",

because the Big Ben Clock Tower and the

Westminster Palace were built during the Victorian age.

Introduction
The first chapter, Time relates to the importance of time and what it means in our daily
lives. Time is accounted by clocks, which are present everywhere, in our mobiles, on the radio,
on our computer desktop, on television, in public places and many other devices. Therefore, this
clock is a landmark in United Kingdoms history, as well as at present and maybe in the future
because it becomes more and more attractive with the passing of time, being a symbol of time.
Chapter two centres on the significance of the clock's name. One theory says that the bell
was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the Chief Commissioner of Works, but another theory says it
was called ''Big Ben'' after the then-famous prizefighter Benjamin Caunt.
The chapter ''Big Ben-The Tower'' presents the evolution of the tower construction
throughout time and the particularities of its building. The tower was finally designed in Pugin's
celebrated Gothic Revival. The four faces are 55 meters above ground and the interior volume of
the tower is 4650 cubic meters. Even though Big Ben is one of the world's most famous touristic
attractions in United Kingdom, the interior of the tower is not open to the general public due to
security concerns, although, from time to time the press and other VIPs are guaranteed access.
The History of Big Ben highlights the fact that the tower has an impressive history, it
was demolished and fired, but the most serious breakdown occurred in 1976, when a part of the
chiming mechanism was disintegrated and The Great Clock was shut down for 26 days over nine
months, until it was repaired. The present Clock Tower dates since 1859.The bell of the tower is
officially known as the ''Great Bell'', the original one was a 16 tone four bell, and it was never
named . The first bell was transported to the town on a trolley drown by sixteen horses.
In the last division of the work, ''Big Ben Nowadays'', I illustrated the particularities of the
actual tower, which became a symbol of UK and London. The Clock Town is a focus of New
Year celebration in the kingdom with radio and TV stations tuning to its chimes to welcome the
start of the year, when the bell strikes thirteen times. It has appeared in many films, as ''Thirtynine steps'', ''Shanghai knights'', ''Doctor who'' and many others.

Chapter I:The Time

Time awareness and clocks though important and common is only the simplest form
of the communication with time. As with people, to establish communication and be on
really good term with time, we should always be close to him. As is well known, time
always flies and we should be ready to move together with him. In other words, we
should not be ahead of time and, what is more important, we should not allow time to pass
us by.
Monitoring time is probably the most monotonous and dull job in the
communications with time. This job requires no creativity, but takes the time.
Clocks are everywhere. They are in our mobiles, on the car radio, on our computer
desktop, on our real desktop, on our microwave ovens and on the streets, like clock towers.
There were built a number of important clock towers in the world among

which: The

Clock Tower from England Big Ben and The Astronomical Clock of Prague-The Old
Town Square.

Chapter II: Big Ben

Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north-eastern end of the
Palace of Westminster in London, and is often extended to refer to the clock or the clock tower
as well. Big Ben 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 (the clock itself first ticking
on 31 May), during which celebratory events took place.
Big Ben is the most commonly used name for the Clock Tower but it is actually the bell
that is called Big Ben. One theory says that the bell is named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the Chief
Commissioner of Works. Another theory suggests that at the time anything which was heaviest of
its kind was called "Big Ben" after the then-famous prizefighter Benjamin Caunt, making it a
natural name for the bell.The tower is also sometimes referred to as St Stephen's Tower, though
this name is not used by staff at the Palace of Westminster, including those who work within the
tower itself. This name might originate from St Stephen's Hall, the western wing of the Palace of
Westminster, which is the entrance used by visitors wishing to view the proceedings of the
Houses of Parliament, and British subjects wishing to lobby their MP.
The present 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 22 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
high (roughly 16 stories).The bottom 61 metres 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 square raft, made of 3-metre thick
concrete, at a depth of 4 metres below ground level. The four clock faces are 55 metres above
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ground. The interior volume of the tower is 4,650 cubic metres .Despite being one of the world's
most famous tourist attractions, the interior of the tower is not open to the general public due to
security concerns, although from time to time press and other VIPs are granted access. However,
the tower has no elevator, 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 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.

Chapter III : The History of Big Ben

The Clock Tower we see today is not the first tower to be built in Parliament's grounds.
The original tower was built in 1288-1290 during the reign of King Edward I. It was
located on the north side of New Palace Yard and contained a bell and clock. The bell, first
named 'Great Edward' and later known as 'Great Tom', struck on the hour.
A second tower replaced the original in 1367. This was the first public chiming clock in
England. By 1707, this tower had fallen into disrepair and was demolished. A sundial was put up
in its place.
A terrible fire destroyed most of the Palace of Westminster in 1834. Architects were
invited to submit their designs for the new Palace and a commission was set up to select the best.
Out of 97 designs submitted, the architect Sir Charles Barry's was successful. However, his
winning design did not feature a clock tower. He added this to his design in 1836.
Construction of the Clock Tower began in September 1843. This is the iconic tower
which stands today in the Houses of Parliament.
The Clock Tower was built from the inside outwards, meaning that no scaffolding was
visible to the outside world. Materials were transported by river. A winch lifted materials to the
masons and bricklayers.
Materials for the Clock Tower came from all over the United Kingdom as: cast iron
girders from Regent's Canal Ironworks were used, Yorkshire Anston stone and Cornish granite
were used on the exterior and a Birmingham foundry supplied the Clock Tower's iron roofing
plates.Caen stone from Normandy, France was also used on the inside of the tower.The
foundation stone for the Clock Tower was laid on 28 September 1843. Its foundations were dug
3m deep.

The construction fell five years behind schedule and the tower was finally completed in
1859. There was no official opening ceremony for the Clock Tower, possibly because its
completion had been so delayed.
Charles Barry was a fine architect but he was not a specialist clockmaker. He sought
advice from a friend, Benjamin Lewis Vuillamy, after adding a prominent clock tower to his
design for rebuilding Parliament after the 1834 fire.
Vulliamy was the Queen's Clockmaker. He began designing a clock for Barry's tower.
Other respected clockmakers, like Edward John Dent, wanted to be involved and disputes broke
out. In 1846 a competition was held to decide who should build the clock.
The Astronomer Royal, Sir George Airy, was appointed referee and set out high standards
for the clock to meet. These included that the first stroke of each hour to be accurate to within
one second and the clock's performance should be telegraphed twice a day to Greenwich
Observatory.
Airy's demanding standards led to delays which lasted seven years. During this time Airy
appointed Edmund Beckett Denison MP to support him in his decision. Denison was a gifted
amateur clockmaker, as well as a barrister and a Member of Parliament.In February 1852, Dent
was appointed to build the clock to Denison's own design. The next delay occurred when it was
discovered space inside the tower was too small for the planned clock design. Modifications
costing 100 had to be made. Dent died in 1853 and his stepson, Frederick, completed the clock
in 1854. It cost 2500 to make.
There was another delay because the Clock Tower wasn't finished on schedule. Until
installation in 1859, the clock was kept at Dent's factory. Denison made many refinements
including inventing the 'Double Three-legged Gravity Escapement'. This was a revolutionary
mechanism, ensuring the clock's accuracy by making sure its pendulum was unaffected by
external factors, such as wind pressure on the clock's hands. Denison's invention has since been
used in clocks all over the world. It is also known as the 'Grimthorpe Escapement' as Denison
was made Baron Grimthorpe in 1886.
The clock was installed in the Clock Tower in April 1859. At first, it wouldn't work as the
cast-iron minute hands were too heavy. Once they were replaced by lighter copper hands, it

successfully began keeping time on 31 May 1859. It was not long before the chimes of the Great
Bell, also known as Big Ben, joined in.
Over the years, the clock has been stopped accidentally on several occasions - by weather,
workmen, breakages or birds. The most serious breakdown occurred during the night of 10
August 1976 when part of the chiming mechanism disintegrated through metal fatigue. It caused
a great deal of damage and fortunately no-one was hurt. The Great Clock was shut down for a
total of 26 days over nine months - the longest break in operations built - until it was fully
repaired.

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Chapter IV : The Bell

The main bell, officially known as the Great Bell, is the largest bell in the tower and part
of the Great Clock of Westminster. The bell is better known by the nickname Big Ben.
The original bell was a 16.3-tonne hour bell, cast on 6 August 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees
by John Warner & Sons. The bell was never officially named, but the legend on it records that the
commissioner of works, Sir Benjamin Hall, was responsible for the order. Another theory for the
origin of the name is that the bell may have been named after a contemporary heavyweight boxer
Benjamin Caunt. It is thought that the bell was originally to be called Victoria or Royal Victoria
in honour of Queen Victoria, but that an MP suggested the nickname during a Parliamentary
debate; the comment is not recorded in Hansard. Since the tower was not yet finished, the bell
was mounted in New Palace Yard.
Cast in 1856, the first bell was transported to the tower on a trolley drawn by sixteen
horses, with crowds cheering its progress. Unfortunately, it cracked beyond repair while being
tested and a replacement had to be made. The bell was recast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as
a 13.76-tonne bell. This was pulled 200 ft up to the Clock Towers belfry, a feat that took 18
hours. It is 2.2 metres tall and 2.9 metres wide. This new bell first chimed in July 1859. In
September it too cracked under the hammer, a mere two months after it officially went into
service. According to the foundry's manager, George Mears, Denison had used a hammer more
than twice the maximum weight specified. For three years Big Ben was taken out of commission
and the hours were struck on the lowest of the quarter bells until it was reinstalled. To make the
repair, a square piece of metal was chipped out from the rim around the crack, and the bell given
an eighth of a turn so the new hammer struck in a different place. Big Ben has chimed with an
odd twang ever since and is still in use today complete with the crack. At the time of its casting,
Big Ben was the largest bell in the British Isles until "Great Paul", a 17 tone bell currently hung
in St. Paul's Cathedral, was cast in 1881.

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Chapter V: Big Ben-In Present

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 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.
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 a 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 face. 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, and is shown being destroyed by a UFO in the film
Mars Attacks and by a lightning bolt in the film "The Avengers". The apparent "thirteen chimes"
detailed above was also a major plot device in the Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons episode,
"Big Ben Strikes Again".

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Undoubtedly, Big Ben is known all over the world and it certainly deserves its fame as it
is the largest four-faced chiming clock and the third-tallest free standing clock tower in the world.
Why is a bell so popular and why did it become a major tourist attraction? First of all, we cannot
deny peoples fascination with clocks, as they provide them the sense of mastering and handling
time. Yes, the Almighty Time seems to be perfectly obedient and disciplined when measured by
the greatest clocks in the world. Thus, Big Ben has become a symbol of the United Kingdom and
London, a symbol much exploited by mass-media. It represents a landmark of the New Years
Eve 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.
The Clock Tower has also appeared in some films; we should mention some of the most
famous ones: The Thirty-Nine Steps, Shanghay Knights, Doctor Who, Mars Attacks, The
Avengers and of course, we can continue the list because Big Ben is one of the cultural symbols
which is easily recognized in china and in the United States, in Kuweit or Romania. And we can
understand why if we have the opportunity to watch it at night and admire its spectacular view
when the clock faces are illuminated.
However, there are more interesting things which attract public interest and admiration. First, the
Big Ben Tower leans slightly to the northwest and also moves back and forth by a few
millimetres each year due to ground contitions. Secondly, the adjoining Palace of Westminster
houses British Parliament sessions and tourist can visit it and can even view a session of
Parliament which is of course a unique opportunity.
Moreover, we cannot forget that during 2009 Parliament celebrates the 150th anniversary
of its world famous Clock Tower, Great Clock and Great Bell so we can feel the sense of history
as they witnessed crucial historical moments. For instance in 1916-1918 the bells were silenced
and the clock faces darkened at night to prevent attack by German Zeppelin and through the
World War II the bells continued to ring but the clock faces were darkened at night to prevent
guiding Blitz pilots. It was its way to deal with history.
As a conclusion, Big Ben stands as a landmark of British history and culture, a symbol to remind
us of survival and achievement.
In Romania we have a tower that we consider important and a very special
historical value. I consider, it is a sign of the medieval past, we need to protect it, as we
have done before, since it was built.

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The Clock tower is one of Sighisoaras main tourists attractions, and among The
Sighisoaras Tower, it is the most impressive and the most picturesque. Its role was to be the
main gate into the citadel and to house the town's council.

It is interesting to know that:

Due to ground conditions, the Big Ben Clock Tower now leans slightly to the
Northwest, and also moves back and forth by a few millimeters each year.
The base of each of the clock faces of the Big Ben in London bears a Latin
inscription meaning, "Lord save our Queen Victoria I", as the Big Ben Clock
Tower and the adjoining Westminster Palace were constructed during the
Victorian age. Today, the Palace of Westminster houses British Parliament
sessions, and tourists can even view a session of parliament for free.
Tourists planning to visit Big Ben National Park will enjoy visiting this visual
symbol of the United Kingdom.
The engineering of the clock is such that the actual mechanisms of the clock itself
are well protected from climate changes and harsh weather.
Big Ben looks most spectacular at night when the clock faces are illuminated. You
even know when parliament is in session, because a light shines above the clock
face.

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Conclusion
Big Ben attracts our attention due to a number of aspects, the tower now leans slightly to
North-West, and also moves back and forth by a few millimeters each year. It also looks more
spectacular at night when the clock faces are illuminated. You even know when parliament is in
session, because a light shines above the clock face.
All in all, Big Ben is known all over the world and it certainly deserves its fame as it is
the largest four-faced chiming, also, the clock town was built to recognize the supremacy and the
irreversibility of time in our lives. For United Kingdom, Big Ben has the same importance as the
time has in our life, it is not just a touristic attraction, but a clock located on the zero meridian,
where we are given the exactly time. The Clock Tower has a rich history, it witnessed a lot of
events, which might have caused its demolishion, but it faced them with greatness.
As a result, time plays a vital role in everyone's life, time helping us in difficult situations,
but also ageing us without any exception.

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Bibliography:

www.aboutbritain.com
http://wikipedia.org
www.destinations360.com
www.whitecapel.co.uk
www.parliament.uk

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