LONDON — Low-tech yet accurate to the second, Big Ben is having its 150th birthday Sunday, its Victorian chimes carrying the sound of Britain into the 21st century.
It’s a birthday the world can share in. The peals of London’s most famous clock are carried globally by BBC radio, and its 315-foot tower, roughly 16 stories, is a well-known landmark.
No special events are planned, aside from an exhibition opening Sept. 19 in the nearby parliamentary offices.
Although the tower above the Houses of Parliament is covered in a riot of gilt crowns, sculpted masonry and coats of arms, the interior looks functional. The 14-foot-long minute hand casts a faint shadow over the pale white glass of the dial. The 5.6-ton clock mechanism, like a giant wristwatch, is wound three times a week.
The chimes ring out every quarter-hour. The bongs of Big Ben itself are heard every hour.
Carried on BBC radio since 1924, the chimes took on added significance in World War II. Every night Britons observed a minute’s silence as the clock struck 9. The solemn chimes were a metaphor for Britons unflappable under fire, said Tam Dalyell, 76, a former lawmaker.
Big Ben’s past
The Clock: Edmund Beckett Denison’s design for the “King of Clocks” was revolutionary. Many at the time thought that keeping a large outdoor clock accurate to within a second was impossible, but Denison’s innovations included a device to help insulate the pendulum from the force of the elements pushing against the clock hands.
The Tower: It once doubled as a parliamentary prison. In the 19th century, Parliament’s sergeant- at-arms could detain obstreperous members in a cell about a third of the way up the tower. The last inmate was Charles Bradlaugh, an atheist lawmaker who refused to take an oath on the Bible in 1880.
