Big Ben

Big Ben is the name given to the large bell of the clock located on the northwest side of the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, in London. Popularly, By extension, this name is also used for the tower clock. Its official name was Clock Tower, until June 26, 2012, in honor of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee, it was decided that the tower would become be called Elizabeth Tower ("Elizabeth Tower").

The tower houses the largest four-sided clock in the world, and is the fourteenth tallest clock tower in the world. It celebrated its 150th anniversary on May 31, 2009, and various commemoration events were held. The tower was completed in 1858 and the clock began operating on September 7, 1859.

The Big Ben tower is a British cultural icon, as it is one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom and frequently appears as an establishing shot in films, television series, programs or documentaries set in London.

Tower

The Elizabeth Tower, formerly called Big Ben Clock Tower and popularly known as Big Ben, was built as part of the design of a new palace, after the old Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire on the night of 16 October 1834. The new Parliament was built in the neo-Gothic style. Although Barry was the Palace's chief architect, he commissioned Augustus Pugin to design the clock tower, which is similar to Pugin's other designs, including one for Scarisbrick Hall, a country house located in Lancashire. The clock tower design was Pugin's last before he fell into depression and madness, and when Barry visited him for the last time to collect his designs, Pugin wrote: "I had never worked so hard in my life." for Mr. Barry, tomorrow I will deliver the designs to finish his bell tower and it is magnificent." The tower is also designed in the neo-Gothic style and has a height of 96.3 meters (about 16 stories).

The body of the tower, 61 meters, is made of brick with sand-colored Anston limestone cladding. The remaining 35 meters are made up of the cast iron spire, inside which there is a small viewing point and a lighthouse known as Ayrton Light, named in honor of the politician Acton Smee Ayrton, and which lights up every time that Parliament is meeting after sunset. It was installed in 1885, several years after the tower was built, by order of Queen Victoria, so that she could know from Buckingham Palace when MPs were working. It was originally gas-powered, but converted to electric in 1903.

The tower sits on a concrete base 15 meters on a side and three meters thick, with a depth of four meters below ground level. The four clocks are located 55 meters high. The estimated volume inside the tower is about 4,650 cubic meters, and it has a weight close to 8,667 tons.

Despite being one of the most famous tourist attractions in the world, the interior of the tower is not open to foreign visitors. Residents of the United Kingdom can request a visit in advance through Parliament. The tower does not have a lift, so visitors must climb 334 stone steps to the top.

In Queen Victoria's time, journalists named the tower St. Stephen's Tower Because parliamentarians originally met at theSt. Stephen's Hall, these journalists referred to everything related to the House of Commons as 'St. Stephen's" (In the Palace of Westminster there is a St. Stephen's Tower, a small tower located above the main entrance, known as St. Stephen's Entrance Usage persists in the Welsh language, where the borough of Westminster, and by extension also Parliament, is known as St Steffan.

Due to changes in ground conditions since its construction (mainly following the construction of the Jubilee Line extension), the tower tilts slightly to the northwest, about 220 mm. It also oscillates annually by a few millimeters to the northwest. east and west, due to thermal effects. The tilt has continued due to the excavation of new Tube tunnels near Westminster. It has tilted about 0.9 mm each year since 2003 and the tilt is already visible to the eye.

On 2 June 2012, the Daily Telegraph announced that 331 members of Parliament, including several leaders of the three main parties, supported a proposal for the Clock Tower to be renamed Elizabeth Tower (Elizabeth Tower) in honor of the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The idea was considered appropriate, as the tower on the south-west side was christened Victoria Tower, also on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The proposal was finally approved on 26 June 2012. Prime Minister David Cameron announced the name change in Parliament on 12 September, and the move was made official at a ceremony in which the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, unveiled a plaque placed on the tower, in the adjacent garden known as Speaker's Green.

Clock

The Big Ben clock was created in 1850 by Edward Dent but he had the help of Edmund Beckett Denison

Spheres

The four sides of the clock and its dials were designed by Augustus Pugin. Each side is made up of a 7-meter circular iron structure that contains 312 pieces of opaque glass, like a stained glass window. Some of these pieces can be removed to check the clock hands. The frames of the spheres are gold. At the base of each clock face, made with brass letters, there is a Latin inscription: DOMINE SALVAM FAC REGINAM NOSTRAM VICTORIAM PRIMAM ("God save our Queen Victoria I").

Unlike many other clocks with Roman numerals, on the dials of Big Ben the number four is represented as "IV" instead of the traditional shape on watches with Roman numerals "IIII".

Operation

The watch is famous for its great reliability and precision. Its designers were the lawyer and amateur horologist Edmund Beckett Denison and George Biddell Airy, the Astronomer Royal. The construction was commissioned to the clockmaker Edward John Dent; After his death in 1853, his stepson Frederick Dent completed the work in 1854. As the tower was not completed until 1859, Denison had time to experiment: he invented a gravity escape system, consisting of a pendulum with a star three prongs that rotates when the pendulum beats the seconds, allowing a separation between the pendulum and the clock mechanism. The pendulum is located in a closed, windproof room under the mechanism. It is four meters long, weighs 300 kilos, is suspended from a strip of elastic steel 1/64 of an inch thick, and beeps every two seconds. The clock mechanism, located in an upper room, weighs five tons. At the top of the pendulum there is a pile of pennies, which are used to adjust the movement of the clock. Adding a coin deviates the position of the center of mass of the pendulum by a millimeter, reducing the length of the rod and thus increasing the speed at which it oscillates. Adding or removing a coin changes the clock speed by 0.4 seconds per day.

On 10 May 1941, a German bombing raid damaged two of the clocks and sections of the tower roof fell, destroying the House of Commons building. The architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed a new five-storey block, two of which are occupied by the current House, which began using them on 26 October 1950. Despite bombing during the Second World War by the Luftwaffe, the clock continued to work and keep time perfectly punctually during the Blitz.

Breakdowns, repairs and other incidents

• 1916: In World War I, the bells were silenced and the watch stopped lighting at night for two years to avoid attacks by the German zepelines.
• 1940-1941: Although the bells continued to work, the watch stopped lighting at night during the Second World War, to avoid being a guide to the Blitz pilots.
• May 10, 1941: A German bombardment damaged one of the watch spheres.
• 3-4 June 1941: the clock stopped from 10:13 p.m. to 10 a.m. the next morning, because a worker who was repairing the damage caused by the bombing dropped a hammer that was stuck in the machinery.
• 1949: the clock was delayed four and a half minutes because a flock of birds settled in the minute.
• February 15, 1952: the watch sounded 56 times every minute during the funeral of King George VI, who died at the age of 56.
• January 13, 1955: the clock stopped at 3:24 a.m. due to the snow accumulated in the north and east spheres. Small electric heaters were installed inside both spheres, which faced the cold of winter, and this measure has helped reduce the incidences produced by cold or freezing.
• 31 December 1962: the clock was delayed due to the large amount of snow accumulated between the needles, so the new year entered with 10 minutes delay
• January 30, 1965: the bells were silenced during the funeral of the statesman and former Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
• August 5, 1976: the watch suffered its first and for now unique fault. Due to the wear of the metal, the mechanism of the timepiece was broken. The watch was re-activated on 9 May 1977. It was the longest period of time that the watch was unfunctioning since its construction. During this time, BBC Radio 4 had to be guided by the Greenwich Time Signal. Although there were minor strikes between 1977 and 2002, when the maintenance of the watch was carried out by the former watch company Thwaites & Reed, they were repaired in a short time and no strikes were considered. Until 1970, maintenance was carried out by the original company founded by Edward John Dent, and since 2002 it has been carried out by the staff of Parliament.
• 30 April 1997: the clock stopped one day before the general elections, and stopped again three weeks later.
• May 27, 2005: the clock stopped at 22:07, possibly due to the hot weather (temperatures in London had reached 31.8 °C). It worked again but stopped at 22:20 and stayed for 90 minutes before running again.
• 29 October 2005: the watch was stopped for approximately 33 hours to review it. It was the longest maintenance in 22 years.
• 5 June 2006: the bells of the rooms were withdrawn for four weeks as one of them was damaged and needed a repair. During this time, BBC Radio 4 issued bird songs by Greenwich Time Signal instead of the usual bells.
• August 11, 2007: the watch was stopped for six weeks to repair. Parts of the mechanism and the hammer of the big bell were replaced, for the first time since installation. During repairs, the clock did not work through the original mechanism, but through an electric motor. Again, BBC Radio 4 had to issue the Greenwich Time Signal during this time. The intention was that the clock function properly for another 200 years before another great repair is needed.
• July 27, 2012, beginning at 8:12 a.m., the watch sounded 30 times, to mark the beginning of the Olympic Games, the trigest Olympic Games, which officially began that day.
• April 17, 2013: the bells were silenced as a sign of dignity and respect during the funeral of Margaret Thatcher.
• 18 August 2014: at 09.00 GMT the clock mechanism was disconnected, with the needles pointing at twelve o'clock, to facilitate the cleaning of the four spheres and to extend four or five days, according to weather conditions. The last time a cleaning was done in 2010.
• August 2015: It was discovered that the watch was 7 seconds ahead, so coins of the pendulum were removed to correct the error, causing it to slow down for a while.
• August 21, 2017: the watch bells are silenced for four years for repair and maintenance work. During this time the needles, spheres and lights will be removed to be repaired, but at all times it will remain intact and in operation at least one of the spheres, with the needles moved by an electric motor.

Bells

Main bell (Big Ben)

The main bell, officially called Great Bell but better known as Big Ben, is the largest bell in the tower and is part of the clock.

The original bell, which struck the hours, weighed 16 long tons (16.3 tonnes), and was cast on 6 August 1856 at Stockton-on-Tees by the company John Warner & Sons. It was possibly named in honor of Sir Benjamin Hall, and his name is inscribed on it. Another theory about the origin of the name is that it was named after a boxer of the time, Ben Caunt. It is believed that the bell was originally called Victoria or Royal Victoria after Queen Victoria, but the fact that an MP suggested that name during a debate is not recorded. officially.

Because the tower was not yet finished, the bell was mounted in one of the Palace courtyards, known as New Palace Yard. The first bell was transported to the tower on a cart drawn by sixteen horses, in the presence of a crowd cheering the progress of the operation. During testing of the bell, it cracked beyond repair and a replacement had to be built. The new bell was cast on April 10, 1858 at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, and weighed 13.5 long tons (13.76 tonnes). This bell was raised 61 metres, to the tower's bell tower, an operation that took 18 hours. It is 2.29 meters high and 2.74 meters in diameter. This new bell rang for the first time in July 1859, and in September it also broke, struck by the hammer. According to the foundry's manager, George Mears, the horologist Denison had used a hammer with more than twice the maximum specified weight. For three years, the Big Ben bell was removed and the hours rang on the clock. lowest bell in the rooms until it was repaired. To repair it, a square piece of metal was cut from the edge of the crack, and the bell was turned an eighth of a turn so that the new hammer would strike elsewhere. Big Ben has rung in a slightly different tone since then, and the bell is still in use today with the crack unrepaired. The Big Ben bell was the largest in the British Isles until the Great Paul, weighing 17 tons and currently installed in St. Paul's Cathedral, was cast in 1881.

Other bells

Along with the main bell, Big Ben, the bell tower houses four other smaller bells that ring the so-called Westminster Quarters every quarter of an hour. The four bells emit the notes Sol♯, Fa♯, Mi and Si. The four bells were cast byJohn Warner & Sonsin 1857 (Sol♯, Fa♯ and Si) and in 1858 (Mi). The foundry was on Jewin Crescent, in what is now known as the Barbican Centre, in central London. The bells are struck by hammers driven by cables coming from a small overhead space between the clock room and the belfry, where Several mechanisms control the movement of the four bells to ring each of them.

The quarter bells play a sequence, repeated once, of twenty notes in the key of E major: 1-4 a quarter past, 5-12 a half past, 13-20 and 1-4 a quarter minus and 5- 20 o'clock (25 seconds before the main bell rings the time). Because the major bell (Si) is struck twice in quick succession, there is no time for the hammer to withdraw and strike again, which is supplied by two hammers situated on either side of the bell. The melody played by the bells, called Westminster Quarters, was originally called Cambridge Quarters, as it was first used on the bells of St. Mary's Church The Great of Cambridge. It is supposedly a variation, attributed to William Crotch, based on air violin phrasings entitled I know that my Redeemer lives, from The Messiah by Handel. The supposed lyrics of the melody, also used in St. Mary's Church, and which refers to verses 23 and 24 of Psalm 37, is: "All through this hour/Lord be my guide/And by Thy power/No foot shall slide". It is written on a plaque on the wall of the clock room.

One of the requirements that the clock must meet is that the first strike of the hour be accurate to one second each day. This measurement takes Greenwich Mean Time as a reference (and daylight saving time in summer). For example, at twelve o'clock, it is the first stroke of twelve that marks the time (and the new year in midnight of the New Year). The time marked by the Greenwich Time Signal (UTC) may be fractionally different.

Name

The origin of the name Big Ben is the subject of debate. The name was first assigned to the tower's main bell, perhaps in honor of Sir Benjamin Hall, who oversaw its installation, or Ben Caunt, English heavyweight champion. Now, Big Ben is used to refer to the clock, the tower and the bell together, although the name is not universally accepted to refer to the clock and the tower. Some authors of publications on the tower, the clock and the bell avoid the question using Big Ben in the title, and then specifying whether the subject of the work is the clock and the tower as well as the bell.

Cultural importance

The clock has become a cultural symbol of the United Kingdom and the city of London, especially in audiovisual media. The most iconic image of the country and the city in film and television is that of the tower, usually accompanied by a double-decker bus, the typical red London telephone booth or one of the city's black taxis.

In 2008, a survey of 2,000 people determined that the tower was the most iconic place in the United Kingdom. It is also considered the most iconic image for films shot in London.

The sound of the clock striking is equally recognized in audio media, but as the Westminster Quarters can also be heard on other clocks and instruments, the sound is not unique to the clock. Big Ben is the focal point of New Year's celebrations in the UK, when radio and television stations use its chimes to welcome the new year. In 2012, the tower was illuminated with fireworks, which exploded with each strike of the clock. Similarly, on Remembrance Day, the chimes of Big Ben are emitted to mark the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, commemorating the signing of the armistice that ended the First World War.

The sounds of Big Ben have been used at the state funerals of British monarchs on four occasions, ringing one chime for each year of the monarch's life: first in 1910, during the funeral of King Edward VII, when Big Ben rang 68 chimes; secondly in 1936, during the funeral of King George V (70 bells); thirdly in 1952, during the funeral of King George VI (56 bells); and finally in 2022, during the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II (96 bells).

Londoners who live at an appropriate distance from the tower can, when receiving the chimes live and on the radio, hear the bells ring thirteen times. This is possible because the chimes transmitted by radio are heard instantly, while the live sound is delayed when transmitted through the air, because the speed of sound propagation is relatively slow.

The opening sequence of the ITN program ITV News at Ten showed an image of the clock with the chimes marking the announcement of the headlines. The chimes of Big Ben (known on ITN as 'The Bongs') continue to be used during headlines, and all ITV News bulletins use a graphic based on the clock face. Big Ben also marks the time on some BBC Radio 4 bulletins (at 6pm and midnight, and also at 10pm on Sundays) and the BBC World Service, a practice which began on December 31, 1923. The chimes are captured live by a microphone permanently installed in the tower and connected by cable to the Broadcasting House.

After the polls closed in the 2010 general election, the results of the exit poll were projected on the south side of the tower. On July 27, 2012, beginning at 8:12 a.m. m., Big Ben rang 30 times, to mark the start of the Olympic Games (the 30th Olympiad), which officially began that day.

Other similar towers

A replica of the tower of about 6 meters made of metal, known as Little Ben, is located near Victoria station. Other towers in different places around the world have been inspired by the appearance of Big Ben, including the Peace Tower of the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa, the public clock tower in San Juan Cacahuatepec, Oaxaca (Mexico), called Big Ben Costeño, the monumental Clock of Pachuca (Mexico), the clock tower in Victoria (Seychelles), the Little Big Ben of La Paz, (Bolivia), which was donated to this city by the British government in 1948 and the clock tower from Antofagasta (Chile), also donated by the United Kingdom in 1911. The Torre de los Ingleses, located in the Retiro area, in Buenos Aires, is very similar to Big Ben, although the colors on its façade differ from the original monument.

Cultural representations

The clock appears in films, series and Lego television sets set in London, and as a specific location in:

• My Learned Friend (1943)
• Peter Pan (1953)
• The Chimes of Big Ben, episode of the series The Prisoner (1967)
• The Nightmare Man, an episode of the series Return of the Saint (1978)
• The Thirty-Nine Steps (1978)
• The Big Ben Bell, episode of the anime series Sherlock Holmes (1985)
• The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
• Mars Attacks! (1996)
• Spice World (1997)
• Shanghai Knights (2003)
• Aliens in London, an episode of the series Doctor Who (2005)
• A Christmas Carol (2009)
• Sherlock Holmes (2009)
• Cars 2 (2011), like "Big Bentley"
• Minions (2015)
• Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, video game of 2015
• Overwatch, video game 2016
• Watch Dogs Legion, video game of 2020

Restoration from 2017-2021

The tower, clock and bell underwent a scheduled thorough restoration with an expected duration of four years, beginning in August 2017, when the bells rang for the last time on August 21 at noon, before falling silent during the duration of the work. Essential maintenance work will be carried out on the clock mechanism, which will be stopped for several months, during which there will be no chimes. The chimes that mark the hours will ring on important dates and events, such as the New Year and Rememberance Sunday, the second Sunday in November when the contribution and sacrifice of the British military and civilians and the Commonwealth countries during both world wars and other conflicts. Big Ben would return to normal operation in 2021, however due to the COVID-19 pandemic, remodeling works were delayed. Its reopening will take place in 2022.

The objective of this restoration is to repair and preserve the tower, update and improve the facilities that need it and ensure its integrity in the future. The last major restoration took place between 1983 and 1985. The most significant novelty in the tower that this new restoration will bring will be the incorporation of an elevator.