Thus he continued: “Other honourable gentlemen might dream that a bridge from the end of Fleet Market into the fields on the opposite side of the water would be a fine speculation; or who knew but at last it might be proposed to arch over the river altogether and build a couple more bridges; one from the Palace at Somerset House into the Surrey marshes, and another from the front of Guildhall into Southwark (great laughter). Perhaps some honourable gentlemen who are interested in such matters would get up in their places and propose that one or two of these bridges should be built of iron. (Shouts of laughter.) For his part, if this Bill passed, he would move for leave to bring in half a dozen more Bills for building bridges at Chelsea, and at Hammersmith, and at Marble Hall Stairs, and at Brentford, and at fifty other places besides.”
Bridges at all those places have long since been built, and, of course, many of them in iron; so the foolishness of one generation becomes the sober commonplace fact of the next.
The bridge thus hotly debated and rejected and at last permitted to be built, was eventually begun in 1729. It was wholly a commercial speculation. The Company interested in it had at the beginning to satisfy the claims of the Duchess Dowager of Marlborough, Lady of the Manor of Wimbledon, and of the Bishop of London, Lord of the Manor of Fulham, for the extinction of their respective rights in the ancient ferry. The Duchess received £364 10s., and the Bishop the meagre amount of £23. The three tenants of the ferry, however, received altogether as much as £8,000; and at the same time the Bridge Act provided for £62 per annum to be paid by the Company, in perpetuity, to the churchwardens of Putney and Fulham; to be divided between the watermen, their widows and children, for the loss of the Sunday ferry.
On November 27, 1729, the bridge was fully opened. The cost was remarkably small. Including Parliamentary expenses and the amounts paid to persons interested in the ferry, it totalled only £23,084 14s. 1d. The old building, narrow, and patched, and crazy-looking, but strong enough to have stood for many more long years, remained to the last in all essentials the bridge of 1729. It had twenty-nine openings, and at the top of the cut-waters of every pier a sanctuary for foot-passengers to step into when wheeled traffic occupied the narrow road. The modest sum of one halfpenny freed the pedestrian, except on Sunday, when the discouragement to gadding about on the Sabbath was a doubled toll. In 1880 the Metropolitan Board of Works purchased the bridge for £58,000, and on June 26 of the same year it was declared free of toll. The last chapter of its long story was concluded on May 29, 1886, when, upon the opening of the new bridge, it was closed.
MONUMENT TO VISCOUNT MORDAUNT, FULHAM CHURCH.
Putney Bridge is found sometimes referred to as “Fulham” Bridge, but those references are few, and there has never been any general disposition to style it other than the name it bears by common usage. Yet it is as much Fulham Bridge as Putney. The present costly structure, built at such great expense in 1886, is already of insufficient width for conveniently carrying the great press of traffic that now uses it, especially since electric tramways have been laid across. The cynical indifference to the comfort and even the safety of other users of the road often displayed by public bodies and by the engineers who lay tram-rails, is shown markedly here, where the London County Council’s lines run for a considerable distance within two feet of the kerb. It is already so evident that the width of the bridge is insufficient that the ordinary observer would not be surprised to find the necessary widening works soon begun.
Fulham Church was rebuilt in 1881, and only the ancient tower of the former building remains. It is in the Perpendicular style of architecture, of a quite common type, and greatly resembles in general style that of Putney Church, at the other end of the bridge; but is on a much larger scale. It contains a peal of ten bells, of which the Fulham people used to be very proud, but an inordinate fondness for ringing them in crashing peals has destroyed any liking; and, in any case, Fulham of to-day, as a part of London, has lost that sense of individuality which used to take a proud interest in local possessions.