It’s Big Ben’s little brother
QUESTION Was there a citycentre public clock in London before the Victorians built Big Ben?
the most famous public clock in London before Big Ben, though not as grand, was thomas harris’s clock at St Dunstan-inthe-West church in Fleet Street.
erected in 1671 perhaps to commemorate the church’s escape from the Great Fire of 1666, it was the first public clock with a minute hand.
the clock features the figures of two giants, Gog and Magog, who strike the hours and quarters, and turn their heads. the sight of this so entranced Londoners — who would gather in crowds to admire the mechanism — that the area became a haven for pickpockets.
there are many literary references to the clock, including in thomas hughes’s tom Brown’s School Days, Oliver Goldsmith’s the Vicar Of Wakefield, Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, and the Warden by Anthony trollope.
In 1831, when the medieval church was demolished and rebuilt to widen Fleet Street, the clock was moved by art collector Francis Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of hertford, to his Regent’s Park mansion.
During World War I, a new charity for blinded soldiers was loaned the house, and took its name, St Dunstan’s, from the famous clock.
Lord Rothermere bought the villa in 1930 and returned the clock to the church in 1935 to mark the Silver Jubilee of George V.
Anthony Turner, Horley, Surrey.
QUESTION Is it true that when Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head?
BEETHOVEN was known to go through a number of rituals and acts of carelessness and carefulness when composing.
his biographer Alexander Wheelock thayer recorded how, during the heat of composition, he would empty a jug of cold water over his head ‘to keep his mind cool’. Others contend that he did this to refocus his mind on the task in hand. he was also known to pour water continuously over his hands, sometimes until the floor was drenched.
Cold water, cleanliness and vigour were important features of Beethoven’s life. nobel Prize-winning author Romain Rolland wrote: ‘he sustains this strength of his by means of vigorous ablutions with cold water, a scrupulous regard for personal cleanliness and daily walks immediately after the midday meal, walks that lasted the entire afternoon and often extended into the night; then a sleep so sound and long that he thanklessly complained against it!’
James Marsden, Monmouth.
QUESTION Why were there so many railway accidents in the 19th century at Penistone Station in South Yorkshire?
PENISTONE is far from unique as the location of more than one major railway accident. norton Fitzwarren, on the Great Western Railway; Abbots Ripton and Welwyn, on the Great northern Railway, and subsequently British Railways; and Winsford Junction on the LMS — and BR in the second incident — have been scenes of multiple accidents.
Causes included errors by drivers and signalmen, inappropriate use of the communication cord, extreme winter weather and, in one case, criminal irresponsibility by a signalman.
One minor mishap in the early days of railways involved a cow from Penistone market. two major accidents within six months in July 1884 and January 1885 were caused by locomotive axle metal fatigue, rather than any factor related to Penistone itself. At that time the importance of regular testing of the inside crank axles had not been fully appreciated.
D. V. Page, West Bridgford, Notts.
PENISTONE was a Great Central junction station on the Manchester to Sheffield/Barnsley to Doncaster main line and also with the Lancashire & Yorkshire line to huddersfield.
Before its name change in 1897, the railway was known as the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway (MSLR). On obtaining a route to London it became the Great Central Railway.
the first MSLR accident was nearby at Stairfoot, near Barnsley, on December 12, 1870, when ten runaway wagons shot downhill to Barnsley at 40 mph, hitting the rear of a passenger train and killing 15 people. It was the result of inadequate braking of wagons when shunting. then followed a string of accidents in July 1884 and January 1885, largely owing to axle failure.
the 1884 accident at hazelhead near Penistone was caused by a locomotive driving axle breaking on the 12.30 express from Manchester. this spread the rails apart, derailing all the coaches, which were thrown to the bottom of the steep embankment, with several smashed to pieces and others on their roofs.
Six months later, in January 1885, an axle broke on an empty train, resulting in a wagon striking the engine of a passing Sheffield to Liverpool train.
the wagon bounced off the engine and was thrown back to bounce again. the wagon then struck the fourth coach, which derailed. the rest of the passenger train piled up against this fourth coach, killing four people.
It was thought the cold weather may have had some connection with the axle failure.
Another serious MSLR event came at Hexthorpe, Doncaster, in September 1887. the Manchester to hull train went through a red signal and crashed into a St Leger race special, killing 25 people.
Penistone is by no means the worst place for railway accidents. At Quitinshill near Gretna, there have been an estimated 205 deaths, and at harrow there have been 122 fatalities.
Another terrible event was the 1860 Clayton tunnel disaster, five miles from Brighton, when a train in the tunnel was smashed into by the following two trains, killing 23 people. Alan Bowden, Bristol.