Autobiography of Sir John Rennie, F.R.S., Past President of the Institute of Civil Engineers / Comprising the history of his professional life, together with reminiscences dating from the commencement of the century to the present time.

by Sir John Rennie

The opposition in the Lords’ Committee was headed by the Earl of Durham, a very able and intelligent man; he would have made an excellent lawyer if Providence had so designed it, and in this instance he conducted his case admirably. I got through the examination in chief very well, and the opposing counsel commenced his cross-examination, and made nothing of it. Then Lord Durham got up and for three days I underwent as severe a cross-examination as I ever experienced, either before or since. He seemed to be aware of all the facts, and omitted nothing to render his case triumphant. I always feared that he was coming to the mistake about Fishmongers’ Hall, but he never did, and I had to lead him away from it as far as possible; at last he got to the frontages in the different streets of the respective parishes which were proposed to be taken, and the new frontages of the new streets which were to be erected. Here I showed very clearly that the lineal frontage according to the proposed new streets would be greater than the frontages taken away. This, however, did not satisfy his Lordship, for he contended that some of the parishes would lose a great deal more frontage than they would obtain. I had some idea that this would be the case, and therefore did not think it necessary to take the individual frontage gained and lost by each parish. I thought it was quite sufficient to know that upon the whole a greater line of frontage would be given by the new approaches, than taken away from the old. The parishes which had petitioned against the Bill on this account, argued that in some of them the rates would be greatly diminished, and that in others they would be greatly increased, which would cause an unequal and unjust distribution. I still kept to my point, and said upon the whole, without going into detail, the parishes would be the gainers, and it was for them to adjust the rates amongst themselves. Lord Durham was very indignant at my obstinacy in maintaining this point, and tried in every way to make me confess that I had made a mistake; I nevertheless stuck to it, and said that if I had tried to equalize all the frontages, my survey might have extended to the Tower, and there would have been no end of the expense. By this time he was losing his temper, and said that if I was not very careful I might go to the Tower still. At this the Committee smiled, and his Lordship, being fairly baffled, sat down, and I, having been told that they had no further questions, left the witness-box with the greatest alacrity.

It was considered that I had made out the case for the Bill so completely, both as regards the estimates and the absolute necessity, in a public point of view, of carrying the new approaches into effect, that no other professional witness was put into the box, except the present able chamberlain, Mr. Scott, then chamberlain’s chief assistant, who gave such clear and straightforward evidence with regard to the funds which were disposable by the Corporation, and the way in which they were administered, that the Committee of the Lords passed the Bill for the London Bridge Approaches with but few dissentient voices. The Duke of Wellington, and five or six Cabinet Ministers with him, attended every day, and in fact kept Parliament sitting to pass the Bill. It was curious to observe that he never for a moment interrupted the opponents of the measure; he gave them full scope, and never said a word until they had had their say, then he put the question, and carried it without difficulty.

After the fifth arch, the first on the Surrey side, was keyed, the sinking was observed to be 4 inches, or about 1 inch more than the others. I could not very well account for this. I also observed that two of the quoins on the south-east end of the fourth arch from the Surrey shore had splintered off at the soffit, but no crack could be observed in the spandril walls; but upon levelling the piers, it was found that the east end had subsided from 10 to 14 inches more than the upper or west end. This I could account for in no other way but that there had been a greater scour here than at the upper end, and that the piles had to some extent been laid bare. I levelled the arches and piers constantly after this for several months from a fixed standard gauge, but could find no alteration; I therefore felt satisfied that the whole of the pier abutments had come to their final bearing, and the works were continued as fast as possible towards completion.

In 1830 the Duke’s Government retired, and he himself became as unpopular as he before had been popular; yet he never deserted London Bridge, and was more frequent in his visits than ever. I often used to attend him at five and six in the summer mornings; he generally came on horseback, and remained from half an hour to an hour, and sometimes more if necessary. At length the whole bridge and the approaches were completed, and His Majesty, King William, at the special request of the Corporation of London, condescended to fix a day on which he would open the bridge in person. Earl Grey, who had strongly opposed the Bill for the improved approaches two years before, now, as Premier, accompanied His Majesty to inaugurate the opening of the same. Perhaps, as a spectacle of the kind, it was the most brilliant of any that had taken place for fully a century; and the whole Corporation, including the Bridge Committee, did everything in their power, for the honour of the City of London, to render the pageant as splendid as possible. The whole of the space at the north or City end of the bridge was covered with a magnificent tent, several hundred feet long, decorated in the greatest taste with the flags of all nations, and with ancient and modern arms grouped round the standards forming the supports of the tent, under which were arranged tables for 1400 guests, for whom a splendid collation was provided. His Majesty, King William, came in the royal barge in state, accompanied by all his ministers, and upon his arrival was greeted with a salute of twenty-one guns from the Tower. All the piers and arches were decorated with lofty standards displaying the national emblems; the whole of these, as well as the great tent and decorations, were under the direction of Mr. Stacey, of the Ordnance department of the Tower, and the greatest credit is due to him for the admirable taste which he displayed. The ceremony consisted in King William walking over the bridge, accompanied by his ministers, the Lord Mayor and Corporation, and the Bridge Committee. When His Majesty arrived at the Southwark end a balloon ascended, carrying Mr. Richard Crawshay; the Tower guns then sent forth another salute, and King William and his cortège returned to the tent at the City end of the bridge, where they partook of lunch with the usual ceremonies, and returned by water as they came, with another royal salute from the Tower. The day was remarkably fine, the river was covered with boats filled with gaily-dressed people; the wharves, warehouses, and bridges were thronged with spectators; in fact, it was a great metropolitan holiday; everything went off well, and all appeared to be satisfied; I was particularly so. I had been very hard worked, I may say almost night and day, for some time past, to get things ready, and was of course rather tried; nevertheless, the success which attended the whole rendered me completely unmindful of myself, and I forgot all my fatigues, for I was amply rewarded for all my troubles and anxieties.

A few days after the opening of London Bridge, Jeffreys, the cheesemonger of Ludgate Hill, presented a petition to Parliament through the well-known Henry Hunt, stating that the new bridge was coming down. Jeffreys was very much annoyed because he had received no recompense for his repeated proposals with regard to the new approaches, though he was never regularly employed; but he was one of those active, intelligent persons, who are always interfering in matters which do not concern them. If he had devoted himself to his own business he might have done well; but, unfortunately, he neglected this, and fancied himself a great engineer, a post for which he was absurdly incompetent. He mistook his vocation, and in attempting to do that for which he was wholly unfit, he neglected the business of a tradesman, for which he was thoroughly suited. The petition ended in its being referred to a Commission, consisting of J. Walker, Telford, and Tierney Clark, who examined the bridge carefully and made their report, which was colourless and came to nothing, as the subsidence spoken of had taken place two years and a half before, and had not increased, nor has it done so up to the present day.

In all works of great magnitude, and particularly in such a difficult situation as that in which London Bridge is built, it is impossible to be certain of attaining absolute perfection, but the Committee, being perfectly satisfied of the stability of the new bridge, determined to remove the old one forthwith, and I received orders accordingly. The removal was contracted for by Messrs. Jolliffe and Banks, for the sum of 10,000l., they having the benefit of the old materials, except in so far that they were to fill up the holes in the river below both bridges, to the extent of 14 feet below low water of spring tides, which was rather more than the average depth of the river in the vicinity; they were also bound to remove the whole of the foundations of the piers, starlings, &c., of the old bridge, to the same depth. The whole of these operations were completed in the year 1834, when the river, after a lapse of 658 years, was restored to its natural state.

The history of old London Bridge is replete with interest, and forms a very curious epoch in the annals of bridge building before the embankment of the river Thames by the Romans. The Southwark side, which is in many places considerably below the level of high water of spring tides, was frequently flooded, and numerous creeks were formed in it, so that the river must have been very unequal in its depth, and filled with numerous shoals, and fordable at low water in several places near London; and there was evidently an appearance of a ford at the site of old London Bridge, as in many cases the piers were founded on the original ground, which must have been dry, or nearly so, at low water; these piers were in many instances wider than the adjoining arches, so that they offered considerable obstruction to the free flow of the tidal and fresh waters through the bridge. These obstructions necessarily increased the velocity and scour of the current, and threatened to carry away the old bridge. Great starlings, or timber casings of piles, were erected round the bridge piers, and the spaces between them were filled in with chalk. These starlings still further narrowed the openings of the arches, so that at low water some of them were little more than 8 or 10 feet wide, and the obstructions became so great, that the fall at low water increased to 5 feet perpendicular. Five openings on the south end and one in the north end were occupied by water-wheels for pumping water for the City. The obstruction caused by these works was so great that the celebrated Smeaton was employed by the Corporation of London to take down the two arches near the centre, and replace them by a single one of 80 feet span.

The original bridge is said to have been built in the year 1176; but between that time and the period of its removal in 1834, it underwent so many alterations and changes that it may almost be said to have been rebuilt several times. It was originally covered with houses, as everyone knows, leaving a narrow passage between for the traffic. To describe the numerous alterations would require a large volume, and the reader is therefore referred to an interesting account of this curious old structure called ‘The Chronicles of Old London Bridge.’

Numerous speculations were made by scientific men, engineers and others, on the effect the removal of the old bridge would have upon the river. My father pointed out the probable results in a very simple manner; he said that the river was in an artificial state in consequence of the old bridge acting as a dam to the free passage of the waters upwards and downwards, both tidal and fresh; and the consequence was, that the river above had to a certain extent accommodated itself to circumstances. By the removal of this obstruction the river would soon be reduced to its natural level; the fall of 4 to 5 feet through the bridge would be removed, consequently the tide would rise so much higher and fall so much lower above bridge, and so much more tidal water would be admitted above the old bridge throughout the whole length of the tidal flow as far as Teddington Lock; and this increased quantity of tidal water passing up and down twice each way during the twenty-four hours would scour the bed of the river, and thus remove the great quantity of mud deposited along the shores. And further, that the drainage of the metropolis, and in fact the whole valley of the Thames, at least as far as Teddington, would be greatly improved; and the water, being constantly changed, would be clearer and fresher. He further said, that the actual level of high water would scarcely be materially affected, perhaps not exceeding 5 or 6 inches; and lastly, that the process would be gradual, and that it would take several years before the river would attain its final and natural state. Such has proved to be the result.

As the works of new London Bridge proceeded attention was drawn to the irregular outline of the wharves, which were not only unsightly but extremely injurious to the regular passage of the waters. At this time also, people having visited Paris and other great continental cities, were struck with the architectural beauties which they had seen, and became much disgusted with the mean, shabby-looking appearance of London; and well they might, for there were no great leading thoroughfares worthy of the name. Cockspur Street, leading from the Strand to Pall Mall, was scarcely 20 feet wide; the Royal Mews occupied Trafalgar Square; the Haymarket was encumbered by haycarts; Cross’s Menagerie and Exeter Change blocked up the Strand near Waterloo Bridge; the connection between Holborn and Oxford Street was round by old St. Giles’, and Farringdon Street was filled with a market, and surrounded by undertakers. Regent Street had been commenced under the direction of that clever architect Nash, which, from his novel mode of grouping shops into distinct masses of different styles, excited considerable attention, and was totally different to anything we had hitherto seen in the metropolis. This great and really magnificent street was, I am told, entirely his own idea, and according to the opinion of the late Sir Robert Smirke, was a Herculean task, on account of the great variety of interests to be dealt with, and he told me that nobody but the indefatigable Nash could have carried it through. He built a house there for himself, now the Gallery of Illustration, opposite to the Club Chambers near Waterloo Place, where George IV. honoured him with a visit. In fact, just about this time there was a perfect mania for architectural improvements.