Big Ben
Big Ben was the name by which the clock tower on one end of the Houses of Parliament was most commonly known. It was also known simply as the Clock Tower, (COMIC: The Aquarius Condition) or St Stephen's Tower. (PROSE: Lucy Wilson)
History
19th century
In 1892, Clara Oswin Oswald, while serving as a governess under the alias Miss Montegue, claimed to her young charges that she was born behind Big Ben's face. She explained that it accounted for her acute sense of time. (TV: The Snowmen)
Later during the 1890s, a Tyrannosaurus rex, having been accidentally sent to the Thames after swallowing the Doctor's TARDIS, advanced on Big Ben before being encircled by the efforts of Scotland Yard using a series of sonic lanterns provided by Madame Vastra. The Half-Face Man, who had later murdered the dinosaur, met his end impaled on the spire of Big Ben after falling from his hot-air balloon in a confrontation with the Twelfth Doctor, with his top hat falling down the tower. (TV: Deep Breath)
20th century
In 1924, Shade Vassily planned to use Big Ben to power his ship. (PROSE: The Clockwise Man)
In January 1941, Jack Harkness tethered his ship to Big Ben. (TV: The Empty Child)
In 1976, Big Ben's clock face was bombed by Black Star. (PROSE: Love and War, No Future)
21st century
On 1 January 2005, the Eleventh Doctor barely avoided crashing his TARDIS into Big Ben as he attempted to stabilise it following his regeneration. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)
In 2006, Big Ben was destroyed by a Slitheen craft, which sheared it in half. (TV: Aliens of London, PROSE: Operation London) This was seen by Elton Pope among many witnesses. (TV: Love & Monsters) Reconstruction proceeded shortly afterwards. (TV: The Christmas Invasion) Shortly after Big Ben was rebuilt, the last Steggosian attempted to release a deadly poison from the tower, but the Tenth Doctor stopped him. (PROSE: The Eyeless)
22nd century
In 2167, the chimes of Big Ben rang for the first time in years to celebrate the end of the 2150s Dalek invasion of Earth after the First Doctor defeated the Daleks. Despite the initial bombardment prior to the invasion, Big Ben was unscathed. It still stood thirty years later. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks)
23rd century
In 2254, Big Ben survived a Dalek invasion of Earth which saw London liberated by the Doctor. (GAME: Dalek Attack)
Later history
By the 28th century, Big Ben had again been destroyed. (TV: The Sensorites)
In 4039, Big Ben was destroyed during the Graxnix invasion of Earth. (COMIC: Hotel Historia)
Alternate timelines and universes
In an alternate timeline created by the Black Guardian, where the First Doctor never left Gallifrey and became Lord President, Big Ben was still standing even as London was ruined by several species fighting over the Earth. This timeline was negated when the Seventh Doctor retrieved the Key to Time. (COMIC: Time & Time Again)
In the Trickster's World, Sarah Jane and Luke Smith stood on the rubble of Big Ben in the 21st century, and the Houses of Parliament, surveying the obliterated remains of London. Sarah Jane was revolted by what she had unwittingly caused by altering the timeline on 18 August 1951. (TV: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith)
In a version of 2586 controlled by the Sodality, the tower of Big Ben was splintered away as if something had crashed into the side of it long ago. (PROSE: Child of Time)
Behind the scenes
- When the Slitheen craft crashes into Big Ben in Aliens of London, the on-screen scenes are flipped, causing the clock face(s) to appear back-to-front in the finished programme.
- Big Ben is actually the name of the main bell housed within the Westminster Clock Tower, and not the name of the clock tower itself.
- Big Ben was featured in Alister Pearson's cover artwork for the 1990 BBC Video release of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, which was also used on the 1990 edition of Terrance Dicks's novelisation of the story. The clock tower had not featured in the original artwork, but was added by Pearson at the request of BBC Video themselves — apparently to aid overseas sales.
- In the ultimately unproduced film The Dark Dimension, the Daleks were to have been among several alien races which simultaneously invade London, with one particular scene depicting a pair of white-coloured Daleks with glowing bases swooping past the face of Big Ben with guns blazing.
