From there, successive developments saw steady improvements in timekeeping accuracy. The invention of the pendulum clock by Christiaan Huygens – who also invented the balance spring watch – some centuries before, in the 1600s, helped the accuracy of clocks go from about 15 minutes per day to about 15 seconds per day. Many clock towers such as Big Ben – if they are not electric today – employ some form of pendulum clock. Just think of the massive power and clockwork it must require to move four sets of those hands, not to mention the five bells.ĭiagram of Big Ben’s clockwork. The hour hand alone is 2.7m (9ft), and the minute hand is 4.3m (14ft) long. With dials on each of the four faces of the tower, each is 7m (23ft) in diameter and made of cast iron with 312 pieces of opal glass for nighttime illumination, some of which have the ability to be removed for inspecting the hands. Edward Dent died in 1853, and his stepson Edmund finished the clock in 1854, but it did not go into use until May 31, 1859, when the tower’s construction was completed.
Dent Parliament watch beside to the actual dial of Big Ben.Īt 334 stairs up the tower, Big Ben’s clockwork sits in a large frame with an inscription near its base: “This clock was made in the year of our Lord 1854 by Frederick Dent, of the Strand and Royal Exchange, clockmaker to the Queen, from the design of Edmund Beckett Denison Q.C.” More precisely, it was designed by Edmund Beckett Denison and George Airy, and constructed by Edward John Dent.
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