1858: Manual labor hoists the great hour bell into place high in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament in London. Some people are already calling the 14.33-ton bell "Big Ben."
Fire had destroyed most of the ancient Palace of Westminster, seat of the British government, in 1834. Parliament resolved to build a new home for itself, complete with a giant tower. The new Houses of Parliament (still officially the Royal Palace of Westminster), designed by A.W.N. Pugin and Charles Barry, rose in neo-Gothic splendor along the Thames. The building was not completed until 1870.
The giant tower was to have a giant clock (with a 23-foot-diameter face on each of the tower's four sides) and a giant bell to toll the hours. The clock — with its 14-foot minute hands — was completed in 1854, but the 314-foot-high tower wasn't ready for it yet.
The first giant bell was cast for the tower at Stockton-on-Tees in 1856 and shipped to Westminster. It was oversize, at 16 tons. Worse, it cracked when they tested it. Back to the drawing board.
More precisely, back to the melting pot. The big bell was broken up, and the pieces taken to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in East London, where Philadelphia's Liberty Bell had been cast. The metal was melted down and poured into a new mold April 10, 1858.
After extensive testing, the bell was placed on a special trolley and drawn by 16 beribboned horses to Westminster, by way of Southwark on the opposite side of the Thames....
Wired.com
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