Forth Bridge
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How it came to be
Before the bridge, the Firth of Forth was crossed by ferry. Work on a suspension bridge designed by Thomas Bouch began on the island of Inchgarvie in September 1878, but it stopped after his Tay Bridge collapsed in 1879. The inquiry found the Tay Bridge "badly designed, badly constructed and badly maintained", and the Board of Trade required future bridges to withstand much stronger wind loads. Bouch's design was formally abandoned on 13 January 1881, and his pier on Inchgarvie still stands beneath the present bridge.
Instead the English engineers John Fowler and Benjamin Baker designed a cantilever bridge, authorised by Act of Parliament on 19 May 1882, with Sir William Arrol & Co. among the contractors. It was the first major structure in Britain built of steel. At the peak some 4,600 men worked on it; the engineer Wilhelm Westhofen recorded 57 deaths in 1890, and later research has found more.
The Duke of Rothesay, the future Edward VII, opened the bridge on 4 March 1890, and its spans were then the longest in the world. Its first complete repainting, finished in 2011, gave it a coating designed to last 25 years. The bridge was inscribed in 2015.
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