On this day in history...

Big Ben rang for the first time

Big Ben has universal significance as it keeps the world in time and many Londoners, myself included, could not imagine the city without it. It is a cultural icon and a survey of 2000 people agreed that it was the most popular lankmark in the capital city. This widespread popularity results in filmakers only needing to show the clock, perhaps with a London bus in the foreground, to let people know where the a film is set. One of the most famous uses of Big Ben is in The Thirty Nine Steps, when Richard Hannay attempts to save the day by hanging from the outside of the clock.

Big Ben started working on this day in 1859, and Edmund Beckett Denison, the designer of the clock, could not possibly have known what an legacy he was creating. Denison was chosen to create it after much of the Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire in October 1834 and they wanted the standout feature of the new building to be a great tower with a clock on top.

However, Big Ben's performance was not always as stellar as it is today. The longest stoppage started on 5 Agust 1976, when the speed regulator of the chiming mechanism broke and the clock had to be shut for a total of 26 days over nine months and Radio Four had to use the pips instead of the chiming of the bell.The clock also chimed New Year ten minutes late in 1962 due to snow slowing it down, but they had a white Christmas, so they can hardly complain.

So Happy Birthday to the icon that is 153 today, it is much loved after surviving two World Wars and all the problems in between, and looks set to keep us in time for many years in the future.