Brunel’s Swivel Bridge, Bristol: History and Heritage

Abstract

This article investigates the background, inception, design and construction of Brunel’s tubular wrought-iron bridges, with a view to setting the Swivel Bridge in historical and technical context (Figure 1).

Keywords:

• Swing bridge
• Wrought iron
• Tubular
• Bristol Docks
• Chepstow Bridge
• Kerbedz

Acknowledgements

Our sincere thanks are extended to the following individuals and organisations who shared their knowledge as well as allowing us to use material from their collections: Joanna Mathers (Head of Collections for the SS Great Britain Trust) and her colleagues at Brunel Institute gave expert advice and assistance in locating relevant material in the superb Brunel Archive. The staff at Bristol Museums went to great lengths to track down early photographs of Brunel's Swivel Bridge. Graham Tratt (Bristol Records Office Archivist) generously provided copies of the original construction drawings of the bridge. Carol Morgan (ICE Archivist) kindly located and supplied relevant images and text from the ICE's magnificent collection of William Fairbairn's correspondence. Thanks also to the previewers of the paper for their constructive feedback. Last, but by no means least, the authors are deeply indebted to Julia Elton for her steadfast support and encouragement throughout the protracted preparation of this paper.

Notes

1 For example:

“The design is of particular interest because it marks the genesis of a form of construction which Brunel developed later in the Chepstow Railway Bridge (1852) and which reached its greatest expression in the Saltash Railway Bridge (1859).”

R.A. Buchanan, 'I.K. Brunel and the Port of Bristol,' Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 42 (1969–1970), 53.

2 I. Brunel, The Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer (London, 1870), pp.171–230, 417–444.

3 Brunel, pp.427–433 passim.

4 Hennet had recently taken the lease of the Great Western Engine Works, adjacent to the Great Western Steamship site where the SS Great Britain was built – half a mile or so up the Float from the South Entrance Lock.

5 Anon, ‘Obituary of William Bell, 1818–1892,’ PICE, 109 (1892), 390–392.

6 BI, DM162/10/4/f.181. Letter from Brunel to Reverend Cowie, 6 January 1846.

7 Brunel, p. 227. Some of Bell’s experiments would be carried out on a small scale – for example, to verify structural calculations. Others were full-scale and dealt with a variety of topics including:

“on the flow of water, on the bursting of water-pipes, on large beams of timber crushed endways by hydraulic pressure, on the strength of [wrought] iron plates riveted together, on the comparative merits of different kinds of ropes, chains, and wire-ropes, on the consumption of coke …”

Anon, ‘Bell’, 392.

8 Brunel, p. 203.

9 BI, DM1758/5/9 passim.

10 Brunel, pp. 211,212.

11 Ibid., p. 200.

12 R.J.M. Sutherland, ‘The Introduction of Structural Wrought Iron,’ Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 36:1 (1963), 79. Richard Byrom, William Fairbairn: The Experimental Engineer (RCHS, 2017), passim. John Rapley, The Britannia & Other Tubular Bridges (Stroud, 2003), passim.

13 ICE, Fairbairn Papers, F845FAILWF, f.44.

14 Compound-girders had been in general use for 10 years or so. Basically, they comprised three cast-iron sections bolted together end-to-end, with wrought-iron ties along each side to take up the slack.

15 Byrom, pp. 213–217. Over one hundred tubular-girder bridges had been built by the end of 1851.

16 BI, DM1758/5/9, 5 February 1847.

17 Hammond died in July 1847. Brunel’s diary records him visiting Hammond three times at his home in Kingsdown, Bristol, and attending his funeral on 6 July. BI, DM1758/5/9 passim.

18 Brunel, p. 429.

19 BI, DM1758/5/9, 20–23 May 1847.

20 Rapley, pp. 88–94.

21 ICE, Fairbairn Papers, F845FAILWF, f. 266.

22 ‘Report of the Commissioners on the Application of Iron to Railway Structures,’ (London, 1849).

23 BI, DM1758/5/9, 8 September 1847.

24 BI, DM1758/5/9.

25 John Binding, Brunel’s Royal Albert Bridge (Truro, 1997), p. 23.

26 BI, DM162/8/2/SSB25/f. 21.

27 BI, DM162/8/2/SSB25/f. 17.

28 BI, DM162/8/2/SSB25/f. 23.

29 ‘Minutes of evidence taken before the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the application of iron to railway structures’, 1849, p. 356, Item 1197.

30 BI, DM1306/02/05 p. 129, 24 August 1848.

31 The Sun (London) 1 June 1848, p. 3.

32 Morning Post 9 September 1848, p. 6.

33 Anon, Bow-string bridge ribs – a description of ribs prepared for a bridge over the Regents Canal, London, for the Blackwall Extension Railway (Tho. Brassey, Contractor), by Messrs Fox, Henderson & Co. Under the direction of Joseph Locke Esq, London Works, near Birmingham. (1849).

34 BI, DM1758/5/10, 10 November 1848.

35 Brunel, p. 194.

36 BI, DM162/10/6/f. 147. Simpson’s aqueducts were under construction at three sites along the Waterworks Company’s ‘Line of Works’. He described one of them thus:

“The aqueduct was continued across the Coombe, or ravine, by means of an oval wrought-iron tube, 354ft in length, supported at intervals of 50ft on piers of masonry, nearly 60ft in height … The section [of the tubes] was oval, the transverse diameter being 3ft 9in, and the conjugate diameter 4ft 7in … the dimensions having been in some degree decided by the minimum area in which a man could conveniently work.”

Samuel Downing, The Elements of Practical Hydraulics (London, 1861) pp. 181, 182.

37 BI, DM1306/02/05 pp. 177–180, 27 December 1848.

38 BI, DM1758/5/10, 28 December 1848.

39 BI, DM1758/5/10, 29 December 1848.

40 BI, DM1758/5/10, 30 December 1848.

41 BI, DM162/8/2/SSB25/ff. 25, 26, 27, 28.

42 Brunel, p. 220.

43 Ibid., pp. 209,210.

44 BI, DM1758/5/11, 19 January 1849.

45 Brunel, p. 203.

46 Ibid., p. 198.

47 BRO, PBA/Corp/M/2/1, 20 January 1849. This notable incident was recalled at a Bristol Council meeting in 1862 by Alderman Robinson, who remarked:

“So little did Brunel think of the rolling bridge that he condemned it and paid the expenses out of his own pocket — something very few engineers were known to do.”

Bristol Daily Post, 5 February 1862.

48 The terms ‘swing bridge’ and ‘swivel bridge’ are used interchangeably here. At that time there was another swing bridge in Bristol that was also nicknamed ‘Swivel Bridge’; it had been built further up the Float in 1827.

49 BI, DM162/10/6, passim.

50 Brunel, p. 196.

51 BI, DM162/10/6/ff. 251, 252.

52 BI, DM1758/5/11, 24 March 1849.

53 BI, DM162/10/7/f. 162. Edwin Clark later published the results of the experiment in: The Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges, with General Enquiries on Beams, 1 (1850), pp. 437–431.

54 Bristol Mercury 23 June 1849, p. 8.

55 BI, DM1758/5/11, 26 July 1849.

56 Brunel, p. 200.

57 Wyrdlight/Alamy Stock Photo, Image ID E66JBM.

58 Monmouthshire Merlin 28 April 1849, p. 3.

59 Cardiff & Merthyr Guardian 2 June 1849, p. 3.

60 The Morning Herald 31 August 1849, p.2.

61 BI, DM162/10/7/ff. 13–17. Isambard Junr wrote of his father:

“Mr. Brunel held the opinion that the system of protecting inventions by means of letters patent was productive of immense evil. The prominent part which he took in all discussions upon this subject exposed him to much adverse criticism, which was perhaps the more freely bestowed, because it was felt that he was a very formidable opponent, not only from the force of his arguments, but also from the authority with which he spoke.”

Brunel, pp. 489–490.

62 BI, DM162/10/6/ff. 317, 318.

63 David Large, ‘The Port of Bristol, 1848–1884’, Bristol Record Society Publications, 36 (1984), p. 10. Brunel’s chief clerk, Joseph Bennett, sent Hennet’s final account to the Docks Committee for payment on 2 February 1850: BI, DM162/10/7/f. 99.

64 BI, DM162/10/7/ff. 58, 59.

65 Anon, ‘Bell,’ passim.

66 Finch & Willey’s foundry at Liverpool.

67 Liverpool Mercury 26 March 1850, p. 4.

68 Robert Brereton, ‘Description of the centre pier of the Saltash Bridge and the means employed for its construction’, PICE, 21 (1862), p. 269.

69 Alfred Stanistreet Jee, ‘Description of an Iron Viaduct, erected at Manchester, on the joint station of the London & North Western, and the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railways’, PICE, 11 (1852), pp. 225, 237.

70 BRO, PBA/Corp/R/4/3, Engineer's Reports 1862–1868, 8 August 1863. The Bristol Docks Committee accepted the tender of Hennet, Spink & Else of Bridgwater on 24 August 1863. BRO, PBA/Corp/M/2/5, Docks Committee Minutes 1863–1867, pp. 51, 52.

71 BI, DM1758/5/14, 14 June 1852.

72 BI, DM1758/5/14, 25 June 1852.

73 See the Appendix.

74 BI, DM162/10/7/ff. 13–17.

75 Jee, pp. 225, 237.

76 Later Lieutenant-General. When Kerbedz retired from military service he became a full Privy Councillor which, in the Civil Service, was equivalent to the rank of full General.

77 Nowadays: ‘Emperor Alexander the First Petersburg State Transport University of Railways’.

78 S.M. Zhitkov, ‘Biographies of Railway Engineers.’ Issue 3, St. Petersburg: Printed by Y.N. Erlich, 1902, pp. 56–57, 60.; M.I. Voronin & M.M. Voronina, ‘Stanislav Valerianovich Kerbedz, 1810–1899’ Leningrad: ‘Science,’ 1982., pp. 91–92, 93, 29–32, 164–165.

79 ‘Review of Common Iron Bridge Systems.’ Journal of the General Directorate of Communications and Public Buildings, 1854, v. 19, p. 25. The ICE Archive holds an abstract of the report translated from Russian to English, dated November 1852: ICE, 1852BRIARM. Unfortunately, Kerbedz’s technical terminology is difficult to interpret when translated from Russian to English.

80 Later Major-General.

81 RGA VMF (Russian State Archive of the Navy, St. Petersburg), fund 410, inventory 2, case 878, sheets 2 reverse, 3–3 reverse; fund 139, inventory 1, case 48, sheets 12–13. Baird was brought up and educated in Edinburgh before entering his father Charles’s iron works at St. Petersburg at the age of seventeen. Charles Baird had established the works in 1792, and was granted Russian citizenship in 1811; thereby, Francis was a Russian citizen from birth. He took control of the works following his father’s death in 1843.

82 RGA VMF (Russian State Archive of the Navy, St. Petersburg), fund 410, inventory 2, case 878, sheets 27 reverse–28 reverse.

83 RGA VMF (Russian State Archive of the Navy, St. Petersburg), fund 421, inventory 5, case 257, sheets 1–2 reverse, 3–6.

84 Extract from drawing: RGA VMF (Russian State Archive of the Navy, St. Petersburg), 1916. RGA VMF (Russian State Archive of the Navy, St. Petersburg), fund 409, inventory 2, case 2360.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Greenfield

David Greenfield graduated from Leeds University with a degree in Civil Engineering in 1964. Following his retirement after a 30 year career as a local authority bridge engineer, in 2011 he was awarded a PhD for a thesis entitled ‘I.K. Brunel and William Gravatt, 1826-1841: their personal and professional relationship’. He is currently the SW England representative on the ICE Panel for Historical Engineering Works.

Eugen Kobchikov

Eugene Kobchikov graduated from the Higher Naval School in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in 1982. He served in the Navy. Before retiring from service in 2010 with the rank of captain of the 1st rank, he held the position of assistant professor of the Department of the Naval Academy. In 1998 he defended his dissertation on the topic “Surface ships of the Kriegsmarine in the war against the Soviet Navy in 1941–1945.” Currently, he is a consultant to the Museum of the History of Kronstadt. The construction of bridges in Kronstadt is one of the topics of his historical research.