For 150 years the Big Ben clock tower has been for the inhabitants of Foggy Albion the same symbol of their country as the Statue of Liberty is for the Americans or the Eiffel Tower for the French.
We are looking for an answer to the question: "How much money should be spent on restoring the accuracy of the most famous watches - London's Big Ben, if they start to rush or lag behind?"
Perhaps, it is immediately necessary to clarify that Big Ben is not at all the tower of Westminster Palace, and not even the clock that adorns it. Big Ben is a huge bell, over two meters high and almost three meters in diameter, located behind the dial. There are several versions as to why the bell got such a name. According to one of them, this cast-iron giant owes its nickname to Sir Benjamin Hall, who oversaw the process of its manufacture.
On the day of a special session in Parliament to discuss the name of the bell, on the last day of May 1859, Lord Benjamin, also known as Big Ben, gave a tiresome long speech. As soon as he finished, focusing the attention of those present on such an important mission as choosing an appropriate name that could glorify London for centuries, etc. and the like, someone in the House of Lords suggested calling the bell "Big Ben" and finally ending the discussion. Such a proposal caused a burst of laughter and almost complete agreement of the members of parliament.
According to another version, the heaviest bell at that time was christened Big Ben in honor of the famous strongman boxer Benjamin Count, who was the idol of ordinary Englishmen in the 19th century. And the workers who carried the Big Ben from the foundries to the parliament building on a cart pulled by sixteen white horses, gave the bell a name in honor of their hero.
Which of these two versions is true, now no one will say. However, the successful and rather apt name stuck and soon spread to the entire structure.
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As for the structure itself, its history is more ancient than the history of watches. The first tower appeared on this site during the Middle Ages in the XIII century. But in 1834, as a result of a fire that broke out, Westminster Palace burned down, and it had to be rebuilt, literally, from the ashes.
The architect Charles Bury, who was entrusted with this crucial mission, decided that it would be nice to decorate the 96-meter tower of St. Stephen, crowned with a cast-iron spire, with a clock. Yes, not simple, but with a fight. According to Berry's plan, they were to become the largest and most accurate clocks in the world, and their bell was the heaviest, so that its ringing could be heard, if not throughout the empire, then at least throughout the capital, emphasizing the greatness of England.
Bury himself coped brilliantly with his task, we still admire his Westminster Palace. But it turned out to be not so easy to realize the idea of the miracle watch. The mechanic Benjamin Valiami, who worked on their project, could not achieve the perfect move, as insisted on by Beri and the city authorities. For example, the Astronomer Royal, Professor George Airy, decreed that the first bell should strike at the first second of every hour, and every hour he was charged to synchronize with the readings of the Greenwich Observatory instruments, with which Big Ben was specially tied by telegraph.
Having received such a task, the mechanic was surprised a lot. In his opinion, an open-air structure could hardly provide such accuracy. After all, it is influenced by weather conditions, daytime temperature difference and many more factors that are simply impossible to take into account. The dispute between the two specialists lasted about five years, and the last word in it remained with the astronomer. The Valiami watch was never destined to adorn the main tower of Britain. This honor was given to the mechanism designed by the amateur watchmaker Edmund Beckett-Dennison. He just had the required accuracy.
Dennison's design was striking both in its scale and beauty of the finish: when assembled, it weighed five tons, hour dials made of Birmingham opal were enclosed in 7 m high frames and installed at a height of 55 m so that they could be seen from all four parties. The pendulum, housed in a windproof box, was almost four meters long, weighed 300 kg, and made one swing in two seconds. And most importantly, the clock was astronomically accurate.
The project of the enterprising watchmaker was approved, he assembled the mechanism, set it up and launched it … And it was then that the hidden problems made themselves felt. It all started with a bell. It had to be cast twice. The first version weighed 16 tons, but did not last long and literally fell apart at the testing stage. It turned out that Dennison, wanting to surpass the heaviest bell in York at that time, weighing 10 tons, changed the shape and alloy composition traditional for bells, which led to failure. The second variant weighed less - 13.7 tons, and, as we can see, retained the record holder status. It remained the largest bell in England until 1881, when the Big Paul, a 17-ton handsome man that adorned St. Paul's Cathedral, was cast.
In July 1859, Big Ben rang for the first time. However, in September of the same year, it cracked under the blow of a hammer hitting it. Again, the blame was placed on Dennison. According to the factory's chief caster, the watch designer used a hammer more than twice the maximum weight allowed. At the same time, some errors in the course were revealed: the clock was either rushing or falling behind. The mechanic was ready to swear by anything on the reliability of his brainchild, but the fact remained the fact. In the end, the cause of the problem was discovered - it consisted in giant cast-iron hands, which, with their weight, accelerated the movement of the mechanism when they were located in the sector from 12 o'clock to 6, and slowed down when lifting. I had to urgently cast them from a lighter alloy.
The repair of the main bell took almost three years. The gaping fissure was reinforced and Big Ben was turned so that the hammer blows would hit a different spot. And the hammer itself was replaced with a smaller one. Upon completion of all the work, the palace architect Bury and the watchmaker Dennison for almost ten years conducted public correspondence, including on the pages of the Times newspaper, accusing each other of the bad sound of the tower clock and the inaccurate work of the clockwork. Well, after the alteration, Big Ben began to ring with a slightly broken drawl, and is still used with a crack to this day.
An important difference between the most famous watches in Great Britain and the world is that they work from weights. Under the influence of gravity, heavy weights slowly descend and after three days reach the ground. Therefore, throughout the history of Big Ben, they were watched three times a week - on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays - they roll up their sleeves, turn the handle of the factory for more than half an hour, thereby lifting the weights up. This work, I must admit, requires strength and endurance.
In addition, the watchkeepers provide the watch with proper care. Every two days, their mechanism is checked and lubricated, taking into account humidity, daily temperature and atmospheric pressure drops, and also corrected their course (like any clockwork, the clock on the tower of the English Parliament is sometimes in a hurry or late for a split second). It's funny that for correcting errors, they use ordinary coins, in denominations of 1 penny! If you put a penny on the pendulum, the clock speeds up by 2.5 seconds per day. The caretaker achieves accuracy in this way - by adding or removing a coin. There is a popular expression on this in Britain: if you need to speed up a process, they say: "Put a penny."
Despite the fact that Big Ben attracts many tourists, it is almost impossible to get into its internal premises: only VIPs of Great Britain are allowed in there, and even then by prior arrangement. In addition, St. Stephen's Tower does not have an elevator, so even royals have to climb the stairs. And these steps are neither more nor less - 334. So you have to endure in order to preserve the tradition, which the British are so proud of.