The most recognisable bell in the world has been cracked for nearly all of its working life. It was cracked once before it ever rang in its tower, and cracked again within two months of striking its first hours. It was never repaired. It was turned, and struck somewhere else.
The Horror
The first bell was cast on 6 August 1856 at John Warner & Sons’ foundry on Teesside. It weighed about 16 tons. It was taken by rail and sea to London and, because the clock tower was not finished, tested in New Palace Yard. There it cracked beyond repair. Stockton’s heritage service dates the crack to October 1857 and says the clapper was generally judged too heavy. That bell was broken up in February 1858.
The metal was recast at the Whitechapel foundry, under George Mears, as a new bell of 13.5 long tons (about 13.7 tonnes). Wikipedia gives the casting date as 10 April 1858. The Stockton page gives April 1859, and the two cannot both be right. The bell was raised to the belfry and first sounded on 11 July 1859.
In September 1859 it cracked again. Mears said the clock’s designer, Edmund Beckett Denison, had used a hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified. Only Mears’s account is recorded, and no reply from Denison is. For three years the hours were struck on the lowest of the quarter bells instead.
The repair was not a repair. A square of metal was chipped from the rim around the crack, and the bell was turned one-eighth of a revolution so the hammer would hit a fresh spot. It has sounded slightly different since, in the note of E natural, and it rings with the crack still in it.
The Legend
Popular retellings add that a lighter hammer was fitted afterwards. That is plausible and is unconfirmed. They also claim that the bell’s distinctive tone is the acoustic mark of the crack. The altered tone after the repair is recorded. The reasoning that the crack gives the sound its character is an interpretation, not a documented fact.
The Modern Relic
The Elizabeth Tower rises over the Palace of Westminster. Its 334-step stair to the belfry was joined by a lift in the 2017 to 2021 restoration. The bell hangs in the belfry and still marks the hours with its crack unmended and its hammer set on a different part of the rim. Whether the public can reach the belfry to see the crack is unconfirmed.
