Dave Straven/Via Flickr
Big Ben is truly a name that rings a bell, but whose name is it?
The official British Houses of Parliament site acknowledges that the exact origins of the name “Big Ben” are unknown. The famous London icon is commonly believed to have been named after Sir Benjamin Hall, “the First Commissioner of Works and a tall man known in the House of Commons as Big Ben.”
But another theory is that Big Ben was named after champion heavyweight boxer Ben Caunt, another Big Ben “who fought his
last fight in 1857, when the bell, and the debate of what to name it, was in the public consciousness.”
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