at least progressing towards completion. In saying this we by no means intend to convey the impression that the clock will soon be going, or that a considerable interval may not yet elapse before it is completed, or even that it will ever be completed at all. In speaking of a subject which has given rise to such endless disputes as this clock, we must guard ourselves, we suppose, against expressing any opinion at all. We only, therefore, announce the fact that Mr. Dent’s workmen have at last begun to do that which should have been done long ago, and that the mechanism of the clock is being put together very slowly in the clock chamber behind the dials. Unquestionably, for a clock whose history now extends over 15 years, and which has been going for nearly three years in Mr. Dent’s factory, it is no great matter to say that after all this time it is at length in course of being sent to the very place for which it was constructed. But, little as this may be in the way of progress, it, at all events, is progress, which is more than we have been able to say of the whole affair any time these two years past. Before the clock will be really in going and striking order, many little difficulties, we believe, have yet to be overcome. One is a contrivance which shall catch the hammer of the great bell the instant it has struck, in order to prevent the rebound again dropping it upon the bell, and lift it clear from the side, that the vibration may not be interfered with. This is, of course, a difficulty which can be overcome, though devising and perfecting the means will require time, especially with a clock of such accurate construction that its striking is guaranteed to be true to a single second. Another difficulty is connected with the arrangements for its being regularly wound. To wind it by hand labour is almost out of the question. This monstrous clock will require winding once in three days, and take 11,500 revolutions of the handle to wind it completely. Supposing two men to be able at such labour to work continuously, and make 800 revolutions of the handle per hour, it would require 14 ½ hours of such exertion every third day. If to this is added the delay caused by the men having to make up the difference caused by the descent of the weights when the clock struck (in striking 12 they descend six feet), it is not too much to estimate the labour at nearly 18 hours, instead of 14 ½; or, to speak generally, about four months of every year would be spent in winding it up. Of course, Mr. Denison will devise some contrivance which will obviate this difficulty, and he can scarcely find a better one than has already been worked out by Mr. James and the indefatigable clerk of the works at the New Houses, Mr. Quarm. By the plan of these gentlemen the clock is made self-winding.
Like many another prestige project, the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament after they had burned down in 1834 became a long, drawn-out national drama, one reported in ever more exasperated tones by the press.
The clock tower was the last design of Augustus Pugin before his final descent into madness. It took seven years to complete – six fewer than those needed to decide on, and then to construct, the clock it would house.
The accuracy of this was ensured by a revolutionary mechanism, the Grimthorpe Escapement. The clock became known, however, by the catchier name given to the largest of its five bells – Big Ben. This was probably a nod to the government’s First Commissioner of Works, Sir Benjamin Hall.
The clock was started in May 1859 and the first chimes were heard in July. Yet even then, further adjustments were needed. Lighter copper hands were substituted for cast-iron ones to enable the clock to keep time. A lighter clapper had to be made, too, when the original caused the bell to crack. The building has officially been known as the Elizabeth Tower since the Queen’s Jubilee in 2012. (See Decimal Day.)
16 December 1861
The news of the serious illness of the late Prince Consort alarmed and amazed all England on Saturday. To the attentive readers of the Court Circular it was only known his Royal Highness was slightly indisposed, and the bulletin which on Saturday announced that his illness had taken an unfavourable turn spread dismay and astonishment throughout the country. Then, all at once, the fearful affliction which threatened Her Majesty was seen, and on every side information as to the state of his Royal Highness’s health was sought for with the most intense eagerness. The announcement which we published in our third edition of Saturday, that a change, slightly for the better, had taken place in the illustrious patient’s condition, was welcomed as almost a relief from the state of feverish anxiety under which all had waited for news. Unhappily, this slight improvement, which raised such ardent hopes wherever it was known, proved to be but a precursor of the fatal issue. During Saturday morning – at least in the early part – his Royal Highness undoubtedly seemed better, and, notwithstanding that his condition was in the highest degree precarious, the change, though sudden, was marked, and almost justified the strong hopes which were then entertained that he would recover. This change was but for a short time, and, in fact, but one of those expiring efforts of nature which give delusive hopes to the mourners round so many death-beds. Soon afterwards his Royal Highness again relapsed, and before the evening it became evident that it was only a question of an hour more or less. The Prince sank with alarming rapidity. At 4 the physicians issued a bulletin stating that their patient was then in “a most critical condition,” which was indeed a sad truth, for at that time almost every hope of recovery had passed away. Her Majesty, and the Prince of Wales (who had travelled through the previous night from Cambridge), the Princesses Alice and Helena, and the Prince and Princess of Leiningen, were with their illustrious relative during all this mournful and most trying period. The approach of death from exhaustion was so rapid that all stimulants failed to check the progressive increase of weakness, and the fatal termination was so clearly foreseen that even before 9 o’clock on Saturday evening a telegram was forwarded from Windsor to the city, stating that the Prince Consort was then dying fast. Quietly and without suffering he continued slowly to sink, so slowly that the wrists were pulseless long before the last moment had arrived, when at a few minutes before 11 he ceased to breathe, and all was over. An hour after and the solemn tones of the great bell of St. Paul’s – a bell of evil omen – told all citizens how irreparable has been the loss of their beloved Queen, how great the loss to the country.
Prince Albert was only 42 when he died. He had been married to Queen Victoria for 21 years and they had rarely been apart, with the Prince coming to play an ever more important role in affairs of state as well as supervising the upbringing of their nine children.
These responsibilities began, however, to take a toll on his health. It had never been strong, and illness, perhaps exacerbated by stress, especially affected his stomach. Historians have speculated that he may have suffered from cancer or Crohn’s disease, and he had been perturbed by the recent deaths of three relations in the Portuguese royal family.
At the end of November 1861, he got drenched after going to Cambridge to reprimand the Prince of Wales for taking up with a ‘low, common woman’ – an Irish actress, Nellie Clifden. When Albert fell ill, he was treated principally by Edward Jenner, the pioneer of vaccination, whose own diagnosis of the symptoms was typhoid. The Prince’s death shocked the nation and led the Queen to seclude herself from public life for years to come.
12 January 1863
On Saturday the Metropolitan (underground) Railway was opened to the public, and many thousands were enabled to indulge their curiosity in reference to this mode of travelling under the streets of the metropolis. The trains commenced running as early as 6 o’clock in the morning from the Paddington (Bishop’s-road) station and the Farringdon-street terminus, in order to accommodate workmen, and there was a goodly muster of that class of the public, who availed themselves of the advantages of the line in reaching their respective places of employment.
