Before the current bridge was built Marlow had an infirm wooden bridge, that began at the end of St Peter's Street. It had only been built in 1788 and was made of oak yet storm damage and heavy traffic kept taking a toll on it. For years locals decried the state of the bridge on the grounds both that it was an eyesore and a danger. The bridge wardens tried to get official help to repair or replace the existing structure. However it took legal action against the County of Buckinghamshire to force them to organise a new bridge.
Not everyone agreed the bridge should be replaced rather than repaired. The artist JMW Turner sketched the old bridge at the end of its life and thought it one of the loveliest he had seen. He said that parts of the bridge were painted to look like stone. An 1801 description agrees on the stone effect given by the white wooden ballustrades. On the other hand, the Berkshire Chronicle in 1832 thought the old bridge was "cumbrous and ugly".
Justices of the Peace decided a new bridge should be provided. The Bridge wardens owned some land which they could sell and put towards the cost but nowhere near enough. There were some rich people in the town willing to put some money up as subscribers but again not enough. The County took out loans. It was at first thought £2000 might be sufficient extra cash to build the bridge altogether - but estimates came in at four times that amount with the cost of the chains alone expected to be £2000 then. (And the estimates were themselves hopelessly optimistic) The county of Berkshire paid something towards the total. Still, a lot was going to be owed.
Tenders were put out and plans drawn up without every aspect of a financial plan on a concrete basis.
Work began in September 1829 when the bridge's designer and engineer John Millington laid the first stone of one of the pillars. Mr Owen Wethered first placed some coins as a sort of time capsule into the hole dug for that. The chains would be the patent links invented by naval man Capt Samuel Brown, as used on Brighton Chain Pier.
The church bells rang in celebration and each worker present was given a token shilling and 10 pence as a gift.
Ominously however as the town stood around that important first hole, it filled back up with water. So a planned official "laying of the first stone" (which would not actually be the first of course) ceremony with more pomp was postponed.
Work progressed on the bridge at what seemed a glacial place. Weeks into the works there wasn't much to see beyond an enormous hole built for those pillars. Pumps had proved incapable of keeping water out of it. Millington asked the incredulous magistrates who had ordered the bridge what he should do about it. They replied that a qualified civil engineer such as himself would be rather more the person to know what to do than them. We must be fair to Millington and point out the pumps supplied to him were clearly not powerful enough but the powers that be baulked at more expensive but more effective pumps. What Milington was really saying was "What is it you think I can do about the bridge as you don't want to buy me a proper pump?" He claimed that it had always been agreed that he should be provided with a steam powered pump, and in the end one was purchased for his use at the cost of £400. He reasoned that it would only be in use for a few months and so could be sold thereafter for only a small loss. (He was wrong, and the pump only fetched £100 in the end.)
Marlow became a local laughing stock. Dark mutterings that the engineer was incompetent, even fraudulent grew. Issues beyond problems with pumps were at play.
Right from the get go Millington had faced allegations that his bridge was not going to be strong enough to support itself. Other similar bridges had collapsed in recent years, critics argued. Some of those expressing doubts were involved with building it. Millington tried to prevent critics looking at his plans or speaking to the justices. Some of the bridgewardens were on his side and were willing to help him with this. Probably they felt he didn't need to have to justify himself to armchair experts. And all the while costs were spiralling. Some Marlow residents accused the bridgewardens of being fleeced by any which contractor or surveyor possible in pursuit of their white elephant vanity project. (Hardly fair - it wasn't they who specifically wanted a suspension bridge). Why can't we have a good old stone bridge came the cry.
In 1829, the Marquis of Chandos, on a visit to Wadham Wyndham at Beech Lodge, travelled to the construction site. He expressed surprise at the state of things and was "astonished to see no engineer or clerk of the works present." It was if these essentials had been done away with entirely he thought. Another of the party was heard to call the sight a "disgrace to the county." Although Milington had announced in July 1829 that he would take up residence in Marlow to personally supervise the work, he left for London after a few months. William Francis, schoolmaster and thorn in the side of any underperforming person in authority, was also a prolific letter writer to the local press, often under the pen name of Veritas. He poured scorn too on the bridges progress, and in particular the fact that Millington had apparently left supervision of the works to inexperienced teenage junior. This could not be Savage who was middle aged, so presumably another perhaps baby faced assistant was at work on site!
Poor Millington gave up and announced he was off to work on some mines in South America. He would leave full plans and instructions with assistant James Savage who was expected to complete the work. And he would like a full settlement of his account before he left!
His bridge would not have fallen down it is fair to say. Copies of his plan managed to survive and later engineers who looked at them did not find them dangerous. They would have given Marlow pedestrian footways of 5 foot width rather than the slightly narrower ones there today. However James Savage was not confident in the design (especially the load bearing capacity of the pillars which were to be in iron) and felt the instructions supplied to him were not good enough to work with.
Perhaps Millington was as much fed up with the backbiting and factional nature of the town as regards the bridge as the engineering challenges it presented.
Enter William Tierney Clark. Millington's design was junked in favour of one of his. Clark had built a similar bridge at Hammersmith and it was still standing which was pretty much the sole criterion on which he got the job. Marlow was nervous and it wanted reassurance. (Engineer Savage of St Katherine's Docks does not seem to have continued in his role.)
So what could go wrong?
Well how about broken down engines, unacceptable quality ironwork being supplied, threatening contractor's who hadn't been paid on time, incompetent workmanship on the created approach roads so that they were impassable, disputes with nearby landowners....
1830 came and went. So did 1831. The Bucks Herald thought rumours that bridge would finally be passable in January of that year might be true and if not, they feared the bridge would have it's name changed to the "Procrastination Bridge" by the world at large. The stonework had at least been finished the previous year, and it was, according to the Reading Mercury "very handsome."
National interest in the saga began to show itself. Visitors followed the earlier example of the Marquis and made a point of inspecting the scene and asking embarrassed locals and frustrated workers why the bridge still wasn't ready.
Things were getting ever more fractious on the bankside. In order to have an approach road to the bridge a small piece of land had been taken from the gardens of Court Garden House. The trees felled in the process were old and tall and Court Garden's then owner didn't feel that he had been adequately compensated for the loss of the timber they represented. This was a bit of hot air to be honest as the trees were clearly ornamental and likely never would have been cut down for sale as timber. He also complained that the bridge wardens had failed to build him a new boundary wall for his property. Wary of the expense involved when the project was already so much in the hole, they dragged their feet in resolving these complaints.
Nor could anyone agree as to how the loans for the bridge should be repaid. A locally levied income tax for the sake of the bridge was unpopular with those who were paying it, but equally plans to pay off the debt by charging every future horse, carriage and herd of cattle a toll to cross it were bitterly opposed. The income taxation continued in the end.
Persistent accusations about false accounting (through incompetence) directed at the bridge wardens didn't help the mood. Financial matters surrounding the bridge had got so complex between Bucks, Berks, the bridge wardens, landowners, a long list of changing contractors and suppliers etc it seems no one could agree who owed what to who let alone all the what, where, when or whys.
An additional expense was the basic repair of the old bridge in 1830 so that it wouldn't completely fall down before the new one was ready.
Those who did have faith in the suspension bridge were rewarded when 3 years almost to the day the original work had begun Mrs Clark's (perhaps wife of the engineer but there were Clarks in the town otherwise) carriage became the first vehicle to cross the new bridge. She was on her way home from London.
Officially the bridge opened on September 23rd 1832.
This meant the old bridge could be dismantled and sold in three lots by local auctioneer Thomas Rolls. He cautioned that as it was largely rotten not a lot should be expected for it. Someone acting for Rolls' company bought one of the three lots it was divided into in a (slightly shady one must say) attempt to pretend to other buyers in the room that it was a desirable thing. In the end £92 was raised. Not apparently what some had hoped for. It is interesting to compare the description of the wood with that appearing in the notice of auction which described it as suitable where strong timber would be required such as lock repairs!
Not quite all bridge construction problems were then at an end. That badly laid approach road was still considered unfit for use in 1836. Tierney Clark still hadn't been fully paid by then and was preparing to sue.
Marlow did grow to love its bridge. It served as the end point for most races of the town's beloved rowing regatta as well as a great place to watch the event from. Punting races, when part of the regatta, used it as a starting point.
Countless painters and early photographers came to Marlow specifically to capture the landmark.
On a sadder note the bridge became a suicide spot, especially in the late 1800s.
Someone who jumped from the bridge and didn't mean to harm himself was Alfred Perry of Dean Street. An employee of Robert Shaw the boat builder based by the bridge, 30 year old Alfred leapt off after apparently trying to prove he could do what an elderly fisherman had just demonstrated he could- dive from the bridge into the Thames. Unfortunately Alfred dived onto the asphalt path below instead. He was badly injured and expected to die but pulled through. It must have been an anxious time for his wife Ellen. They had a band of young children to support. Happily, Alfred was alive and well on the the 1891 census, though he had switched jobs to that of fisherman.
The bridge attracted some anti-social behaviour. Within days of the bridge opening signs had to put up to discourage the little boys who were clambering onto the bridge and swinging from its chains. Three youths -Thomas Burns, William Cox and Roland Rose plead guilty to throwing stones from it in 1899. A letter to the South Bucks Standard in 1904 lamented the local habit of spitting from the structure.
Some vehicles could be problematic too. By the mid 1870s too-heavy vehicles using the bridge were stressing the structure and signs forbidding them to cross were first erected in 1877. They were largely ignored. In 1909 a traction engine pulling a cargo of very heavy lead caused the carriageway in the centre of the bridge to collapse. A team of men worked all night to free the engine from the hole it had created. Just weeks later an 8 tonne vehicle was caught going over it. Most drivers of overloaded vehicles were not locals but Thomas Lowe [or possibly Love, Jane found the original record hard to read] of Chalk Pitt Cottages was summoned for taking a heavy motor engine over the structure in 1908. In the same year, some councillors had demanded that heavier vehicles should be allowed to cross the bridge arguing that if it wasn't a strong enough structure to support them, it should be made so.
Some Other Marlow People involved in some way with the bridge construction project:
Miss Symonds- more than a third of money loaned for the project came from her. Sadly I do not know her first name.
John Rolls- sold some of his land for the bridge to be built on (reluctantly). His brother Thomas was an industrious bridge warden. Left to him the project probably would have had far fewer problems.
Thomas Lovegrove- repaired the work's steam engine.
William Bond- one of those paid for carpentry work. He did most of it. A post on him and his father with a photo of their home is here on the blog
Corby and Clifford building company for brickwork and stone masonry [Thomas Corby and Theophilus Clifford.] The latter named a daughter with the middle name Suspensiana after the bridge in 1829. A biographical post on Theophilus will be found Here
To find people on this blog select the Person Index option on the drop down menu. More general history posts are listed under General History on the menu.
To read about the adjacent old Marlow church replaced at a similar time, see the post here
To read more about the old bridge and the repairs done in 1860 to the new bridge see here
The legend of a bargeman eating puppy pie under Marlow Bridge here
Researched and written by Charlotte Day & Kathryn Day.
©Marlow Ancestors.
Some sources and background reading:
A Memoir of Suspension Bridges by Charles Stewart Dewry 1832. Published by Green and Longman. Digitized by Google from a copy held by the University of Michigan. In this you can see Millington's design for his bridge.
Bridgewarden accounts and papers at Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies some of which were accessed by Jane Pullinger.
Newspaper copies held at the BNA: Berkshire Gazette 12th September 1829, Windsor and Eton Express 15th &19th September 1832, South Bucks Standard 17th June 1904, Maidenhead Advertiser 24th February 1909. Bucks Herald 9 October 1830. Berkshire Chronicle 29 September 1832.
Phillips, Geoffrey - Thames Crossings (David & Charles 1981)
1891 census from microfilm images transcribed by me and supplied by the LDS at a family history research centre.
Beauties Of England and Wales or, Delineations topographical, historical and descriptive, of each county - John Britton, Edward Westlake Brayley et al. (1801)
South Bucks Standard Directory of Marlow 1891.
So far this blog contains mention of
4,300
people from or associated with Marlow.
