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Thus the old Palace of Westminster was historically of great interest. But it had no pretensions to beauty. It was just an architectural patchwork, added to from time to time without any sense of order or unity of design. Interiorily, it was also confined and uncommodious. Yet the idea of pulling it down to give place to a building of nobler proportions and one more suitable to its great purpose was not relished. In the very last session of the Commons that was held in St. Stephen’s Chapel Joseph Hume proposed that new Houses of Parliament should be built in the Green Park. The motion was rejected. Four or five months later, as the buildings were enveloped in flames, one of the spectators wittily cried out: “There is Joe Hume’s motion being carried without a division.”

The great conflagration which destroyed the Palace was on the night of Thursday, October 16, 1834. The Whig Ministry, under Earl Grey, that carried the Reform Act of 1832, broke up in July on the question of appropriating a portion of the revenues of the Church in Ireland to secular purposes, and was succeeded by another Whig Administration with Lord Melbourne as Prime Minister. Parliament was prorogued on August 15th by King William IV in person. It was to meet again on October 23rd. When that day came the ancient Palace of Westminster was a thing of the past. At first it was thought the fire was the work of political incendiaries. But a Committee of the Privy Council found, after a long and searching investigation, that it was due solely to human stupidity. An immense quantity of old wooden “tallies” or notched sticks, originally used as receipts for sums paid into the Exchequer, had accumulated at Westminster, and, after the abolition of this barbaric mode of keeping the national accounts and the substitution of pens, ink and paper, in 1826, the sticks were used as firewood in the Government offices. As the room in which the remaining “tallies” were stored at Westminster was required for another purpose, two men were employed all day, on October 16, 1834, in getting rid of the sticks by burning them in the stove under the House of Lords by which that Chamber was heated. At five o’clock they went home. At half-past six the House of Lords was found to be on fire. The heat from the over-charged flues had ignited the panelling of the Chamber. The progress of the flames could not be stayed, and gradually the conflagration swept over the whole mass of buildings. Thus did the ancient Palace of Westminster disappear through an act of almost incredible carelessness. All that remained of the historic fabric were the cloisters of the old St. Stephen’s Chapel (or House of Commons), the crypt beneath the Chapel, in which the Speaker used to entertain Members at dinners and other social functions, and, happily, Westminster Hall, with its centuried associations of great men and historic deeds. Practically everything else was destroyed, including the Throne in the House of Lords and the Chair in the House of Commons.

On October 23, 1834, the day appointed for the reassembling of Parliament, the two Houses met for a brief and formal sitting amid acres of still smouldering ruins, the Lords within the charred walls of their library, and the Commons in an adjoining committee-room. It was decided temporarily to fit up the House of Lords for the use of the Commons, and the Painted Chamber for the use of the Lords, and a sum of £30,000 was voted for the purpose. A Royal Commission was also appointed to superintend the construction of a new Palace of Westminster. Parliament then adjourned. On November 14th King William dismissed the Melbourne Ministry, and Sir Robert Peel was commanded to form a new Administration. On the advice of the Prime Minister, the King dissolved Parliament on December 29th, and the new Parliament met on February 19, 1835, in the temporary buildings, which continued to be used till the completion of the present Palace of Westminster.

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Among the immense crowd which witnessed the grand and terrible spectacle of the burning of the old Houses of Parliament on that night in October 1834 was an architect named Charles Barry. He had known and loved the ancient and historic pile from his earliest years, for, born in 1795, the son of a stationer who had a shop in Bridge Street, opposite the Houses of Parliament, he had grown to manhood under its very shadow. Parliament decided to have an open competition for designs of the new legislative buildings. The only condition imposed was that the style should be either Gothic or Elizabethan. As many as ninety-seven architects entered the lists. The successful competitor was Barry for his Gothic plan. He was forty years old at the time. In superintending the building and internal decoration of the Palace—subject to the control of the Royal Commission—Barry was assisted by Augustus Welby Pugin, another architect and an authority on the Gothic style. Hume’s idea of removing the Houses of Parliament to the Green Park was revived, but the historic associations of Westminster made too great an appeal. Moreover, was not the Duke of Wellington of opinion—far-seeing man that he was—that the site by the river was the best, as it would be fool-hardy to have the Houses of Parliament accessible on all sides to an attacking mob?

The river wall was begun in 1837. The buildings were not commenced until three years later. The selection of the stone received the anxious consideration of the Commissioners. Finally the hard magnesian limestone from Anston, in Yorkshire, was selected for the exterior of the buildings, and French Caen stone for the interior. Then, on April 27, 1840, the first stone—it may be seen from Westminster Bridge in the south-east angle of the plinth of the Speaker’s House—was laid without any public ceremony by the wife of the architect, and the vast edifice was raised on a bed of concrete, 12 feet thick. Exactly seven years later—April 15, 1847—the Lords first occupied their House; and at the opening of the session of 1852, on November 4th, the Commons assembled in their new Chamber.

The progress of the building was beset with many difficulties and vexations for the designer. The Palace was originally expected to be finished in six years, at a cost of £800,000, exclusive of furniture and fittings. Twenty years passed before it was fully completed, and over £2,000,000 was expended upon it. The Treasury refused to pay Barry an architect’s professional fees of 5 per cent. upon the outlay on the works executed under his direction, and fixed his remuneration at £25,000, or £23,000 less than he held he was entitled to. His designs were also subjected to continuous criticism and attack by other architects. However, he was knighted on the completion of his splendid work. Dying suddenly at Clapham Common on May 12, 1860, his remains were honoured by a grave in Westminster Abbey. His statue by John Henry Foley stands at the foot of the great staircase leading to the committee-rooms of the Houses of Parliament.

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Probably no feature of London is so familiar in the metropolis, or so widely known by name in the provinces, as the famous clock of the Houses of Parliament. No visitor to London would think of returning home without having seen “Big Ben” and heard him chiming the quarters and booming out the hour. During the summer season hundreds of thousands of strangers, not only from the provinces, but from far-off lands, gaze up at his massive, honest face, proud and delighted to have made the acquaintance of so great a London celebrity. It is the largest clock in the world. Each of the four dials, there being one for each point of the compass, is of white enamelled glass and 23 feet in diameter. The minute marks on the dial look as if they were close together. They are 14 inches apart. The numerals are two feet long. The minute hand is 14 feet, and the hour hand six feet. To wind the clock takes about five hours. The time is regulated by electric communication with Greenwich Observatory.