Big Ben 150th anniversary
Big Ben celebrated its 150th anniversary last week, its distinctive cracked tone ringing out on April the tenth, and giving the world’s most famous bell a character that some more perfect instruments lack. Big Ben and Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell are only the best known products of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, Britain’s oldest manufacturing company and in continuous business since 1570, with the roots of the company going back to 1420.
But Big Ben might not have that slightly off-key sound had it not been for the persistent meddling of the man put in charge of the project. Edmund Beckett Denison QC was a man who didn’t like to admit he was wrong - although in his opinion the occasion didn’t arise. It was an arrogance that would see him the lawyer end up in court himself, sued twice for libel by the Whitechapel firm.
Big Ben was the job nobody wanted. The old Palace of Westminster, which had stood for hundreds of years and survived plotting by Guy Fawkes and his pals, was razed by fire on 16 October 1834. A new Houses of Parliament was needed, and the members decided a new clock tower, with mighty bell, should cap the project. Charles Barry, the architect building the new Parliament, in 1844 invited a single clockmaker to submit a proposal for the tower clock but there were howls of protest from rival clockmakers and the job went out to tender. Astronomer Royal, George Airey drew up a specification that was fiendishly exacting. Among his demands that ‘ the first stroke of the hour bell should register the time, correct to within one second per day, and furthermore that it should telegraph its performance twice a day to Greenwich Observatory, where a record would be kept.’
The clockmakers suddenly fell silent. The spec Airey had given was impossible in the eyes of the experts, but the Astronomer Royal wouldn’t back down. Parliament broke the deadlock by appointing Sir Edmund. The first Baron Grimthorpe was “zealous but unpopular, self-accredited expert on clocks, locks, bells, buildings, as well as many branches of law, Denison was one of those people who are almost impossible as colleagues, being perfectly convinced that they know more than anybody about everything - as unhappily they often do.”.
And he did in this case, though progress was slow. In 1851 he came up with a design of his own. The timepiece, meeting Airey’s strict demands was built by Messrs EJ Dent & Co. These master clockmakers are still in business incidentally, producing the station platform clock for the revitalised St Pancras Station. Dents finished the clock in 1854 and it was held at their works for the next five years … the tower wouldn’t be ready until 1859.
Now Beckett, newly made Sir Edmund, moved to the bells. The brilliant Barry had been ambitious but vague in his demands. A 14-ton bell was specified with four smaller quarter chime bells, but that was as far as he went. Sir Edmund’s clock researches had brought him into contact with bells too, and he was confident he could design the things. The problem was, the biggest bell ever cast in Britain had been less than 11 tons, Great Peter at York Minster. This time it was the bell founders of Britain who fell silent. Adding to their concern, Sir Edmund had designed the bell, giving it an unconventional shape and a new recipe for the bell metal. John Warner & Sons at Stockton-on-Tees came up with a 16-ton answer on 6 August 1856, but it cracked beyond repair while being tested at Palace Yard in Westminster.
Denison sacked Warners and gave the broken bell to George Mears, master founder and owner of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Mears quoted £2401, but knocked off £1829 as he was able to melt down the broken bell - a job that took a week and three furnaces. The finished bell, which took 20 days to cool, was then ceremonially carried on a trolley from Whitechapel to Westminster. 16 beribboned horses processed over London Bridge, through Borough and back over Westminster Bridge, cheered all the way by crowds.
And two months after it had been hauled into place, Big Ben cracked again. Denison had demanded an over-heavy hammer. The bell went out of action for three years and was eventually spun a quarter turn and a lighter hammer fitted. The crack remained, giving Big Ben the slightly off tone for which it is famous.
But Sir Edmund wasn’t done. In an extraordinary twist he befriended one of the Whitechapel moulders, got him drunk and had him swear that the Whitechapel Foundry had cast the bell badly and bodged it with filler. The Foundry sued and Denison lost. Still he wouldn’t let it go. Twenty years later he repeated the libel in print. Whitechapel, now under a new founder, Robert Stainbank sued again. Again they won. But were they right? Experts examined Big Ben in 2002 to see if there had been a cover up. Not a trace of filler was found. Whitechapel Foundry had produced the best bell they could to Sir Edmund’s recipe, and 150 years later it’s still ringing out … if a little off key.
With many thanks to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which is at 32/34 Whitchapel Road, London E1 !DY, UK. www.whitechapelbellfoundry.co.uk. You can visit the museum and shop, though note that you can’t actually watch the bells being cast … much too dangerous!