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For want of a ha’penny- The Widcombe Bridge Disaster

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In January 1863, a new bridge was opened connecting Bath Spa railway station with the districts of Widcombe and Lyncombe. Situated just behind the station it was a 100ft wide ‘bowstring trussed’ bridge in timber, designed by Hicks & Isaacs of Bath. It offered a much quicker way into the city for those living on the other side of the river.

Bridges of this sort were not unusual, it was a version of the Albert Bridge in Saltash built by Isambard Brunel, although report of the time refer to it as a ‘cheap adaptation’ of this type of bridge, presumably because it was mostly timber rather than the iron of larger bridges, but was claimed to…

“possesses great strength and stiffness, combined with freedom from the vibration of the ordinary suspension bridges.”

A toll was payable to cross and many feared it would not be a commercial success.

In 1877, The Royal Bath and West Society, founders of the Royal Bath and West Show celebrated their centenary. The show had been held in different locations each year since the 1850’s and they settled on Bear Flat in Bath, south of the river, for this special occasion.

According to the Bath Chronicle;

“The Exhibition was opened on Monday under the most favourable circumstances. The weather was as fine as could be desired and consequently large numbers of people attended the Show, which in some departments was the largest ever held by the Society.”

Such was the popularity of the Show that excursion trains were laid on by GWR in addition to normal services. On Wednesday 6th June 1877, an excursion train arrived at Bath at 11 o’clock having collected passenger from Salisbury, Weymouth and many stations in between. Several hundred people descended from the station intent on heading for the showground. The first thing that caught their attention on leaving the station was a notice;

“The nearest way to the show field over this bridge. Toll one halfpenny.” The announcement was painted in a large red and blue characters on a piece of canvas, several feet in length, and affixed to a frame work of wood.

Upwards of 10,000 persons had arrived in Bath by railway on that day and the landlord of a nearby pub estimated that there were 300 on the bridge at the time of the accident – normally there were no more than 40 or so. The toll house was at the far end of the bridge and there was just one attendant (Henry Tanner) to collect the fees from the passengers, resulting in a considerable delay in crossing.

While they waited to pay the toll, a sudden cracking was heard, and the bridge parted in the centre. This then caused the supports at the ends to give way and the whole structure fell into the water, taking all those on the bridge with it. It appears that the Widcombe end of the bridge was the first to give way, and that it rested for a few seconds on the tow path underneath providing valuable time for many to escape from the water.

The water was ten feet deep and several people were drowned, while others suffered fatal injuries from the fall, being dashed against the abutments or fragments of the bridge, or crushed by the falling timbers.

The scene of the accident being near to the railway station with hundreds of people on the spot, there was plenty of ready help, and many of those who were on the bridge at the time were rescued. One of the first to arrive after the accident was Mr. H.C. Hopkins, a local surgeon, whose attention was first attracted by hearing a loud crash and shrieks. He was at the time on the platform of the station, waiting to meet a train, and at once crossed the line, and looked over the parapet. People were trying to climb up the sides of the wreckage, and others were so completely jammed between the pieces of timber from the bridge they couldn’t move.

Several boats came to the rescue along with the rafts used by the workmen building a new railway bridge higher up the river. People were pulled from the water, but eight of them were dead; forty or fifty of those injured were taken to the Royal United Hospital or to the Southern Dispensary and even to inns or private house in nearby Claverton Street.

Forty-five of the injured were admitted to the hospital, having been taken there in cabs and carriages (many of whom were lent by the owners), and it was proudly recorded that they were treated and were all in bed within one hour and twenty minutes. For its prompt actions the hospital received public praise, and donations totalling £400 were received from various individuals and societies. The council of the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society, donated £100 to the hospital, in recognition of the attention paid to the sufferers in the accident.

An inquest was opened and then adjourned in order to allow time for some scientific opinions to be sought and for Colonel Yolland, on behalf of the Government, to make an examination of the ruined bridge. Colonel Yolland was a leading member of the railway inspectors of the Board of Trade and was directed by the Principal Secretary of the of State for the Home Department to discover the causes which led to the failure of the Widcombe footbridge.

According to witness accounts the flow of people across the bridge came to a halt because of a dispute concerning change of money for the toll. The toll keeper, Tanner, hung on to the gate stopping anyone from proceeding any further during the dispute. An account from one of the last people to cross the bridge before its collapse, states the passengers were kept waiting ten minutes because of this dispute, and that he and others fully foresaw the danger they were in. So certain were they that the structure would give way, that one gentleman took from his pocket a couple of sovereigns and some silver and said he would sooner pay the toll for the everyone on the bridge than there should be any further delay. This gentleman was picked up afterwards on the towing-path with ,it is said, the money still in his hand.

At the inquest an engineer for the Board of Trade stated that

  • – no provision had been made for maintaining parts of the load bearing structure,
  • – there were some faults in the structure which limited the load it could bear,
  • – the bridge should have been tested with heavier loads following construction. (There were no agreed standards at the time;such things came out of inquiries to this and other disasters)

“… he stated that the bridge was designed according to recognised and accepted principles and having detailed at length, its method of construction he attributed the causes of its failure as follows first to overloading a structure already weakened by natural decay second the improper alterations and additions which had from time to time been made to it, thirdly to defects in the original design and construction of the bridge.”

The coroner told the jury that the work of Mr. Williams, tbe builder of the bridge, would not come within the purview of the jury, as the principle of his design had been destroyed by the repairs and alterations.

The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter against S.G. Mitchell, G. Bruce, H.W. Wicks and T.W. Isaac Player, the bridge owners and proprietors and against Henry Tanner, the toll keeper. The jury also felt strongly that some legal provision should be made for the supervision of bridges intended for public use. However, a Grand Jury at the next Somerset Assizes determined there were no charges to answer, so there was never a trial nor any punishment for those who may have been responsible for the disaster.

Following the inquest a large number of actions were started against the proprietors of the Widcombe Bridge in which large sums (up to £3000) were claimed for injuries sustained by the accident. A final settlement of £4000 for all claims was finally settled on by the end of the year.

The incident caused widespread interest with reports in all the major papers and even being reported as far away as Hobart, Tasmania. Mr. K. D. Hodgson, M.P. for Bristol, telegraphed from the house of commons to Mr. George, at the Bath station of the Great Western Railway, on behalf of numerous MPs, asking for details. The Great Western Railway Company were also said to be contemplating replacing the fallen bridge with a more substantial structure wide enough for carriage as well as foot traffic.

The bridge was replaced with a single-span, wrought-iron lattice girder construction in 1877 and was most recently restored in 2013. The toll house still stands at the Widcombe end of the Bridge.


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