Readers Meg , Wayne , and Rajiv all drop a line in to ask about the tune that clock bell typically play . What ’s it called ? Where did it come from ? How ’d it get so popular ? Here ’s the story .
In 1793 , a fresh clock was install at St Mary the Great , the University Church of the University of Cambridge . Rev. Dr. Joseph Jowett , the Regius Professor of Civil Law , was ask to draw up a gong . With the assistance of Dr. John Randall , a professor of music , and an undergraduate student named William Crotch , he wrote a melody reportedly based on a motion from George Frideric Handel ’s oratorioMessiah .
The chime was dubbed “ Jowett ’s Jig ” by Cambridge students and later on became have a go at it as “ The Cambridge Chimes . ” The air was copied by the men who establish the new clock and bell at the Palace of Westminster in the mid-1800s . ( The clock , bells , and sometimes even the clock column are usually together with know as “ Big Ben , ” though the nickname originally referred to just the 13½-ton hr bell , named for technologist Benjamin Hall , who supervise its installation ) . From then on , the melodic phrase has been known as “ The Westminster Chimes ” or “ Westminster Quarters . ”
Edmund Beckett Denison , who designed the movement mechanism for the Westminster clock , say of the chimes :
The tune ’s prominence at the famous clock towboat led to it being re-create for small and large clocks worldwide ( plus doorbells and school bells ) , to the point where it might be the only strain people think of when clock chime are cite . Daniel Harrison , a music theorist and Chairman of the Department of Music at Yale University , writes that the tune ’s popularity also “ for certain owes much to the attractive melodious chronological sequence , but perhaps more to drippy associations of British regal pomp and condition , reinforced by the use of [ the quarter ] by the BBC World Service for many years to preface the top - of - the - hr world news composition . ”
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