By Zanub Saeed
London's famous Big Ben tower, hovering over Parliament, will be renamed after the nation's monarch as part of Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee, which was celebrated in early June as part of her 60th year as reigning monarch of the United Kingdom and its territories, announced Reuters this week.
Big Ben, official named the Clock Tower, will thus be renamed the Elizabeth Tower, announced Parliament on Tuesday, according to Reuters. The 316-foot high tower, with the famous giant bell that gongs every hour for the capital city, was completed in 1959. The name change was proposed by Conservative Party lawmaker Tobias Ellwood, said Reuters, and accepted by Parliament. Dozens of MPs signed a campaign to change the name of the clock tower, reported AFP on Tuesday.
"The House of Commons (parliament) Commission welcomed the proposal to rename the Clock Tower Elizabeth Tower in recognition of Her Majesty the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and will arrange for this decision to be implemented in an appropriate manner in due course," a House of Commons spokesman told the press.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron was positive about the naming of the iconic landmark.
"The renaming of the Clock Tower to the Elizabeth Tower is a fitting recognition of the Queen's 60 years of service. This is an exceptional tribute to an exceptional monarch," Cameron was quoted as saying, by Reuters.
There are two theories as to why the clock tower was named Big Ben, though nothing confirmed. One, said AFP, was after Benjamin Hall, whose name was inscribed on the bell, and the second was after Ben Caunt, a heavyweight boxing champion from the 1950s.
The only other British monarch to have celebrated the diamond jubilee, Queen Victoria in 1897, also had a tower in the west end of Parliament in London named after her.
The public's reactions to the news were mixed. Some were for it, while others felt it would not be quite as iconic as Big Ben.
"Big Ben is so old and iconic, what is the sense in changing its name? All over the world people won't understand what the Elizabeth Tower is," Romanian tourist Mara Ciortescu told Reuters.
