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A chronology of the world's most famous clock.
The Elizabeth Tower, Big Ben, St Stephen's Tower, the Westminster Clock Tower... call it what you will*, the multistorey timepiece of the Houses of Parliament is one of the world's great landmarks. It's getting on for 200 years since the edifice was first conceived, and it's seen a fair bit of action in that time. Here's our eminently readable, won't-find-it-all-on-Wikipedia chronology of the horological marvel.
*See our previous article for discussion about the various names and levels of pedantry.
Also in this series: BT Tower, Buckingham Palace, London Zoo, Millennium Dome/O2, Westminster Abbey
1834 (16 Oct): The old Houses of Parliament burn to the ground in a devastating fire. Only Westminster Hall, the Jewel Tower and a few other fragments survive. Though utterly disastrous, the conflagration tees things up for the much more impressive Houses of Parliament we know today.
1836 (29 Feb): After a fierce competition with 97 entrants, the winning scheme for the rebuilding works is announced on the leap day. Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin's grand gothic plans win unanimous approval, although concerns are raised about the huge cost of the thing.
1843 (28 Sep): Construction work begins on the Clock Tower.
1852: The great clock at the heart of the tower is constructed by John Dent, to a design by Edmund Beckett Denison.
1856 (Oct): The name "Big Ben" appears in print for the first time. The London Evening Standard of 22 October notes "All bells, we believe, are christened before they being to toll, and on the occasion it is proposed to call our king of bells "Big Ben," in honour of Sir Benjamin Hall, the President of the Board of Works." Rival theories that the bell was nicknamed after a popular boxer of the time are not mentioned in the press, but it's quite possible that the nickname played on this moniker as well as honouring Benjamin Hall.
1856 (13 Nov): Big Ben, cast in Stockton-on-Tees, gets its first test. The mighty bell — the largest in England — was struck for the first time in public at the foot of the still-under-construction tower. The booming resonance put the willies up half of Westminster. According to one reporter at the time, it was "Like a potent poison, the vibration penetrates every vein in the body; it strikes every nerve, it attacks and tries every fibre in the muscle, it makes your bones rattle and your marrow creep." It would toll 1pm every Saturday for the next 11 months.
1857 (24 Oct): Disaster! The bell rings out at a decidedly different pitch. Subsequent inspection reveals a deep crack in the metal. The bell is irreparable, so is removed and melted down.
1858 (12 May): A brand new Big Ben, recast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, gets its first public airing. This time, the clapper is deployed in Whitechapel itself, "to the astonishment and alarm of the whole vicinity". Funny to think that Big Ben once rung out over the East End. It is later transported to New Palace Yard.
1858 (14 Oct): The great bell is raised up into the tower. Press reports of the time suggest it will be officially unveiled by Queen Victoria and named the "Royal Victoria" in her honour. This seems not to have happened, and the nickname of Big Ben became de facto.
1859 (11 Jul): The second bell is bonged in situ for the first time. "The noise which it makes is so unearthly, sepulchral, and miserable," thought one commentator, "that one would suppose it was tolling the funeral dirge of the whole human race!... It is voted a bore, by general assent."
1859 (Sep): Farcically, the second bell also develops a crack and is taken out of service for FOUR YEARS.
1863 (Nov): Bong! A patched Big Ben finally resumes its tolling. The tone is thought more subdued that during its infancy. The bell has continued to serve ever since, though with occasional stoppages.
~1882: The clock tower is turned into London's tallest stink pipe, to reduce the odious smells in the two chambers. (The building was not adequately hooked up to Bazalgette's sewers and still relied on cess pits.)
1885: The top of the tower is fitted with a new beacon, which shines out lighthouse-like whenever either House sits after dark. It is named the Ayrton light after Acton Smee Ayrton, who suggested it.
~1905: The tower begins to appear on every bottle of HP Sauce, after the condiment wins the approval of the palace's canteen. HP is usually taken to mean "Houses of Parliament" sauce.
1910: Big Ben is co-opted into the funeral procession of Edward VII. The bell tolled 68 times to mark the late king's years. The tradition would be repeated with subsequent monarchs.
1916: The bells are silenced and the clock faces are not illuminated, so as not to attract Zeppelin raids.
1918: The bells begin to toll again, symbolically on the 11th hour of 11 November.
1923 (31 Dec): Big Ben makes its radio debut, chiming in the New Year.
1940: Big Ben strikes thirteen at midnight! At least according to a German radio announcement, which seems to have been invoking triskaidekaphobia as an unlikely ally in the propaganda war.
1941: The tower is slightly damaged by a bombing raid that destroyed the House of Commons. Curiously, the bells were not stopped at all during the war, unlike the previous conflict. Hence why the Germans were able to claim thirteen tolls.
1949: A flock of starlings, perching on the minute hand, is enough to slow the clock by four and a half minutes.
1959: To mark 100 years of Big Ben, an exhibition opens in the nearby Jewel Tower, featuring original drawings, models and early photographs. It's a slow-burner. Only 91 people turn up in the first week, though numbers grow as the weeks go on.
1962/3: The stroke of New Year is delayed by nine minutes, thanks to an unfortunately timed snowfall. Imagine that happening today, live on worldwide TV.
1970 (5 Aug): An internal failure causes damage to the mechanism, stopping the clock for almost a month for repairs.
1980: The BBC announces that Big Ben will be given a new digital readout, with the clock's hands given away to the first four people to contact the station. Listeners fail to notice the date (1 April) and are 'shocked and angered' by the proposal, overwhelming the broadcaster with complaints. It's a wheeze that's been suggested many times since — just do an image search.
1980: Although they didn't get to digitise the clock, the BBC did throw a spanner in the works later in the year. Well, not exactly a spanner, but a Blue Peter presenter's foot. Peter Duncan was dangling in front of the clockface as part of one of his trademark "dares" when he accidentally kicked the minute hand. It was knocked four minutes into the future, but was quickly fixed.
1996-7: Construction of the new Jubilee line station at Westminster potentially imperils the tower. Models show that the landmark might lean by up to 10cm without remedial action. Engineers pump 'compensation grouting' into the ground beneath the structure, which greatly reduced the effects.
2012 (2 Jun): The edifice is renamed the Elizabeth Tower as part of the celebrations surrounding the queen's Diamond Jubilee. It's not only a fitting memorial to Her Majesty; at a stroke, it also ends the perennial arguments about whether the tower should be called Big Ben, the Clock Tower or St Stephen's Tower.
2012 (27 Jul): In a busy year for the tower, Big Ben chimes 30 times in succession to welcome in the 30th Olympiad, hosted in London.
2016: Pimm's is announced as the official sponsor of Big Ben, although the 1 April date makes us wonder...
2017: The tower is destroyed by a rampaging sharknado, which seems to be attracted towards the capital's most photogenic landmarks. It's not the only time Big Ben has been destroyed on film. Notable catastrophes include a plague of dragons (Reign of Fire), a crash-landing UFO (Doctor Who), a terrorist attack (London Has Fallen), and having the whole of Dubai fall on top of it (Independence Day: Resurgence).
2017 (21 Aug): The sharknado might have been fictional, but Big Ben is indeed silenced this year ahead of restoration work. It would not bong regularly again until 2022. The works also include the installation of a lift shaft, making public tours more accessible.
2018 (Apr): Nobody alive has ever seen the Big Ben clock face without its hands. Now, thanks to restoration work, we all do.
2019 (Mar): After two years' restoration, the clock faces are revealed once again... and they've gone blue. It's actually a restoration to the original colours, which were quickly begrimed with soot and smog.
2022 (Nov): Big Ben's bongs return, after five years of near-total silence. The interim period saw three changes of Prime Minister, a new monarch, exit from the European Union, a global pandemic, war in Europe and a cost of living crisis. Good job we're not superstitious.
2023: Public tours of the tower are put on sale. Previously, to get a tour you had to write to your MP, whom you'd hope would have better things to do than moonlight as a bookings agency.
6011: Back in 2011, experts warned that the tower's slight lean could become a problem between 4,000 and 10,000 years in the future... so this is the earliest date ;-)
Also in this series: BT Tower, Buckingham Palace, London Zoo, Millennium Dome/O2, Westminster Abbey
All images by Matt Brown, unless otherwise stated.
