Tomorrow marks 150 years since Big Ben first rang out across London.

The bell, which hangs in St Stephen’s Tower in the palace of Westminster, first struck the hour on July 11, 1859. It has continued to chime every 15 minutes since, with only occasional stoppages for repairs and bad weather.

To celebrate the anniversary the message “Happy Birthday Big Ben, 150 years, 1859 – 2009” will be projected onto the 96-metre tower, which is an icon on the London skyline.

The bell is thought to be named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings, whose name is inscribed on the bell.

Times Archive, 1859: The bell of Westminster

On Saturday the great bell of Westminster sounded for the last time, and while in the very act of striking Big Ben became dumb for ever

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• Letter from Mr Denison

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The tower, which is often referred to as Big Ben, was built as part of the refurbishment of the Houses of Parliament by architects Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin, who won a competition to rebuild the Palace of Westminster after fire destroyed it in 1834.

But the bell itself and the clock, the time of which it marks, were created by Edmund Becket Denison, who came up with an audacious design with “double three-legged gravity escapement” separating the pendulum from the hands and a huge bell weighing 16 tons.

His detractors believed the design for the new clock – which remains accurate to within a second to this day – would never succeed.

They thought they were correct when the first bell cracked beyond repair but a second bell, weighing 13.8 tons, replaced it after 16 horses dragged it from an East End foundry to Parliament.

After long delays and spiralling costs, the clock began to tick on May 31, 1859. The bell was heard for the first time on July 11.

Letters to The Times record the public reaction to the steady marking of the passing of time. One Thomas Walesby wrote complaining “the sound elicited is still a failure — wanting in gravity, power and solidity of tone”. But another writer from Kensington, insisted that “at this distance the sound was most sonorous”.

But soon after it began to chime the bell became cracked, sparking a bitter feud between the Denison and the master bell founder George Mears, who was blamed for the damage.

The crack was never fixed but the bell rotated so that the hammer struck at a different point. It never sounded the same again.

Mike McCann, Keeper of the Great Clock, said: “After 150 years, Big Ben still holds a special place in the hearts of Londoners and the world as a magnificent example of engineering and building genius."

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