How The Victorians Built Impossible Bridges | How The Victorians Built Britain | Absolute History

in the long reign of a single queen britain changed the world and was itself utterly transformed queen victoria came to the throne in 1837 by the time she died in 1901 we had made the modern world it was a time of brilliant engineering pioneering innovation all of it driven by fearless men and women who dreamt big and shaped the country we live in today [Music] fast and effective new transport systems shrank the world you travel further faster the railways compress space and time startling innovations above and below ground saved lives we've grabbed the saw like this it's more like carpentry than surgery groundbreaking ideas nurtured our minds and souls it was feeling like you were dancing in one of the great european palaces and a revolution in law and order set us on course for the freedoms we take for granted today you brought from the darkness of the prisons into this glory it's fantastic isn't it it is this is the story of how the victorians built britain [Music] the romans gave us timber arches medieval britain stone bridges but as queen victoria came to the throne a different material iron gave engineers the chance to tear up the rule book it's the scale of it isn't it when you go underneath it and build the impossible god that's like a cathedral the scene was set for those masters of victorian engineering to build some of the greatest bridges in the world [Music] when queen victoria came to the throne in 1837 the industrial revolution was well underway it was based on the nation's huge reserves of coal and iron ore from coal came coke a material used to smelt iron ore to produce iron it would be used to create the world's first iron bridge in 1779 which still stands over the river 7 in shropshire the iron bridge marked a new era by 1875 britain had conquered iron and was producing nearly half the world's output this new iron age coincided with an explosion of the road and rail network the race was on to connect the furthest reaches of the country the victorians would need a new generation of bridges to take road and rail where they'd never been before some of the greatest engineers who've ever lived used iron to create the modern world telford stevenson brunel always pushing at the boundaries of the possible and nowhere more so than in this spectacular symbol of victorian ambition and ingenuity [Music] the clifton suspension bridge spanning the avon gorge in bristol the epic clifton suspension bridge stretches over 400 meters when it was built it was the highest bridge in britain [Music] riding high on the nation's iron boom this beauty is the creation of the engineering legend is embard kingdom brunel civil engineer dr bill harvey is a world expert on bridges who knows the remarkable story behind this amazing structure it's a wonderful bridge but why ever did they build it here well because the rich people who had town houses in clifton wanted to get across the gorge and it's a long way down and a long way back up the other side but it's a huge project it is a massive project just so as the rich people of clifton could cross the river and walk in the woods they were really quite rich bristol had grown rich on the back of the slave trade local merchants had shipped more than half a million african slaves before the emancipation act freed them in 1833 when it abolished slavery the government gave bristol slave owners half a million pounds in compensation around 25 million today the rich wanted their bridge but the vast expanse of the avon gorge presented brunel with a problem a traditional stone arch bridge would be simply too heavy brunel's solution was a suspension bridge which would be lighter and stronger than any other type of bridge over that distance nothing on this scale had ever been built before but the young brunel wasn't afraid of risk how old was he then 23. just a boy give me some idea of what sort of engineering challenge it was to span this gap to me the biggest problem is the distance between the towers was too great brunel's bosses were concerned that even a suspension bridge would collapse over such a huge distance he'd have to shorten the gap between the towers by moving them towards each other [Music] his solution was a piece of engineering cleverness that still stands today a massive brick foundation for the lee woods tower built in front of the cliff he made the gap as narrow as he could and that's a big piece of work in 1831 work finally began on the 26 meter towers that would hold the bridge up one perched proudly on its new foundation [Music] the trouble lay round the corner in october that year the bristol riots exploded onto the streets in a city divided the wealthy had the vote and the poor wanted change the riots raged for three days angry mobs destroyed the jail and the bishop's palace at least 12 people were killed and more than 80 injured by the time the riots died down investors had lost confidence in bristol and the future of brunel's bridge hung in the balance for a long time the bridge wasn't built at all there was two pillars just standing there that's right and the engineers saw it as a monument to failure ever the opportunist brunel turned the disaster to his advantage by creating a thrilling ride across the gorge they built a temporary cable bridge from a whole strip of iron bars welded together and pulled across the river and they had a little basket underneath it with a pulley and a rope to pull people backwards and forwards on quite an exciting ride i would think the contraption which brunel called the suspended traveler was originally used to get builders across the gorge the public were nervous at the thought of taking a ride in what was effectively an early cable car so the man himself volunteered to be first to cross [Music] a rather dangerous ride wouldn't it be it got stopped once or twice what people were hanging off a basket in the middle there yeah and when it happened to brunel he clambered up and freed the pulley and they pulled him back but what happened to other people i don't really know the basket ride became a popular tourist attraction with passengers paying a shilling to wobble their way across the avon gorge it raised around 164 pounds or 10 000 pounds today towards the bridge but it was nowhere near enough to get it built the only signs of brunel's bridge were its two lonely towers one of them standing on that vast foundation that would hold a secret for nearly 140 years the victorian era saw the birth of a new iron age it enabled great engineers to build the biggest strongest longest bridges that the nation and the world had ever seen one of the most majestic was isambard kingdom brunel's masterpiece the clifton suspension bridge such a spectacular place isn't it for over a century people thought they knew everything there was to know about brunel's so-called first love [Music] but nearly 140 years after this icon of engineering was built and through here routine maintenance unearthed brunel's engineering secrets deep in the enormous foundations beneath the lee woods tower and then if you come through here god look at this it's like a cathedral isn't it it's that kind of shape yep what there was a got a very very thin stellar types i think yeah yeah they're about pencil thickness and just a thin skin of stone it's an eerie place though isn't it it's a nearly place yeah but the amazing thing is nobody knew this space existed no how many of these vaults are there 12 12 this is the biggest is it this is the biggest how was it discovered that this was actually hollow by resurfacing on the footpath upstairs there was a manhole which had been paved over and when they lifted it they found their way in just completely by accidents completed by accident why did brunel build it alarmingly to me hollow common sense tells you it's got to be much less solid and strong than something that's been packed if this was all solid then the towers would be standing on the stone whereas built like this the towers are standing on the skin so they're okay solid walls or skins provide a firm foundation these walls are up to 13 meters thick in places so they're not going anywhere brunel knew that hollow foundations can be safer than solid ones as they reduce the overall weight of the entire structure bearing down so you're actually saying that it's stronger being hollow than it would be if it was solid yes that rather defies common sense it does but that's what engineering is it's defined common sense all the one if brunel defied common sense it was only when he'd calculated that he could brunel didn't have the benefits of modern day computers to rely on instead he used his brilliantly mathematical mind he was one of the first really calculating civil engineers so yes he did do the suns he didn't just put his finger in his ear and say build it he did he did work out what the tension was going to be and how much the cables would sag how much they would move and he was certainly clever enough to work that out which isn't trivial calculations sadly brunel would die before his bridge could be built but thanks to the enduring brilliance of his calculations victorian innovators william barlow and john hawkshaw could continue brunel's legacy they promised to complete the clifton suspension bridge as a memorial to brunel the fact that barlow and hawkshaw took it on at the end and finished it and they were two real towers of late victorian engineering clearly meant that to them it was something very special what does it tell us about the victorians just that they were brave to me yeah we can do this let's make it happen when brunel's bridge finally opened in 1864 it was the longest single span chain bridge in victoria's empire for the clifton elites it was the ultimate symbol of status and power victorian engineers like brunel thomas telford robert stevenson were constantly pushing each other to test iron to its limits in 1826 telford made waves with his meni suspension bridge a wrought iron road bridge linking the island of anglesey and the mainland of wales not to be outdone in 1849 stevenson unveiled his high level bridge it was a combined road and rail bridge spanning the river time in it he used 5 000 tons of iron the metal was fueling a railway and bridge building mania in 1846 there were more than 200 acts of parliament for proposed railway lines to connect the nation this was the victorian.com boom iron had seemed to be the perfect bridge building material but for a celebrated victorian engineer one project proved to be literally a bridge too far civil engineer thomas bouch had risen to fame with his light and low-cost viaducts but he dreamt of walking amongst the brunels and the telfords vouch had a reputation for quick and cheap bridges and in scotland he'd been chosen to build a bridge over the river tay [Music] the tay bridge broke all the records that used 10 million bricks 7 000 tons of iron and 2 million rivets it was by far the longest bridge in the world at nearly two miles long bouche needed his single track bridge to be light and cheap he chose a lightweight lattice design which would help to keep the cost down for the thin columns he used cast iron which is melted cooled and poured into a mold making it cheaper and quicker than its stronger cousin wrought iron the tay bridge opened in may 1878 to great excitement the railways got their profits and queen victoria knighted vouch for his achievements but on the night of the 28th of december 1879 fierce winter gales battered the firth and the tay bridge as a passenger train sped over the high girders the central spans of the bridge gave way [Music] eyewitnesses said they saw sparks fly from the wheels the bridge collapsed plunging the engine all six carriages and everyone on board into the icy waters below it's thought 59 people died that day among the victims were badge's own son-in-law in less than a year batch fell from fated knight to disgraced engineer technology consultant mick steeper knows what went wrong that night mick what caused the taybridge disaster the brittleness of the iron from which it was built particularly the cast iron columns and that they were the eventual sight of the failure that brought the bridge down and they they just broke they broke because the bridge was flexing too much if you repeatedly bend iron it will eventually break and that's what happened to the tail bridge the tay bridge had been stretched to breaking point by the gale force winds and the weight of overhead trains a devastating passenger death toll taught queen victoria's engineers that they'd finally pushed iron too far in the wake of the tay bridge disaster the nation must have been in shock so what was the answer we needed a material for large-scale engineering that didn't have that brittle character that was more flexible less prone to fatigue and the modern material that we we know is steel and and of course the taybridge disaster was probably the single event that accelerated the transition from iron to steel in the minds of civil engineers steel is iron that's been mixed with carbon and other metals it's harder stronger and more flexible than iron just over 300 miles away from the tank sheffield was the hub of the victorian steel industry its workshops making the engineering tools that were building the nation but there was one floor in this marvelous metal it could only be made in small batches and therefore make small things hopeless for big projects like bridges who came up with the answer well there was quite a race to develop the technology and it was bessemer in britain the the one in 1856 henry bessemer unveiled the bessemer converter it allowed air to be blown through the molten iron to remove impurities [Music] a game changer like this would soon convert 25 tons of iron into steel in just half an hour for the first time in world history steel could be cheaply mass produced right here in sheffield so bessemer's process his invention what impact did it have on the design and the building and the construction of bridges in particular well it was massive because as soon as steel starts coming into bridges you've got new design techniques and they become much more efficient and the prospects of building bridges across wider stretches of water becomes possible too in this new victorian era of cheap and plentiful steel there were winners all round bessemer was knighted his inventions brought him wealth and a fine london mansion less than 20 years after bessemer's converter arrived in sheffield as much as a third of the city's steel output was being exported across the atlantic to build american railroads [Music] closer to home the victorians would be testing steel's metal in their biggest bridge yet as the railways expanded so did the demand for longer stronger bridges and the metal to build them but with high rewards came great risks and the tay bridge disaster had brought iron down to earth with a bump now victorian steel was about to be put to the test in the biggest bridge the world had ever seen in 1883 work began on the fourth bridge a victorian feat which would come to be known as the eighth wonder of the world to witness its full glory i'm sailing out on the fourth estuary with mona aunt a civil engineer who knows this marvel inside out it's the scale of it isn't it when you go underneath it it's absolutely incredible it's the first major structure in the uk that was built from steel i mean it's a mile it's it's two and a half kilometers in length and even nowadays it's still the second longest single can't leave a bridge in the world really so it's incredible the visionary engineers behind the huge structure were john fowler and benjamin baker they'd have to make sure the force bridge was strong and safe in the back of everybody's mind must have been the other big bridge the table so it's safe to say that the public were very nervous they had lost a lot of the confidence in tall big structures like this so it was really important that now fall and baker designed a really really strong and sturdy bridge to kind of ease everyone's minds and to make them feel safe when they cross it to not only be strong and safe but to look strong was that important too it was definitely they wanted people to see that massive skeleton of steel so people could look at and think yes this is going to stand up for a long time baker and fowler's monumental challenge was to span the massive estuary with a bridge that was strong and cost effective their solution was a cantilever bridge which would hold up its own weight as it was being built baker and fowler found a creative way to demonstrate the principle to the world at the royal institution in london they came up with what is called a human cantilever the saturn chairs stretch their arms out to basically represent the cantilever arms and then they were holding wooden sticks which show the bottom cantilever arms and then they had a plank of wood sitting between them with a third person on it it was basically a practical way of showing people with their own bodies how the bridge is working that third person swinging in the middle was construction foreman kaichi watanabe one of the first ever japanese students to train in britain his weight represented the trains and all the loading that was over the bridge and he could sit there really comfortably there was not a problem at all and they showed look this does work which is fantastic their design worked in theory but the bridge's opening day on the 24th of february 1890 was looming mindful of public fear fowler and baker put the fourth rail bridge to the ultimate test [Music] to put everyone at ease and to show that this can really work they put two really really heavy trains on it they were over 100 meters long 50 wagons each filled to the brim and they ran them in parallel along the bridge and it was successful it was a great test it showed that the bridge is strong and sturdy so overall it was a massive success and there we are there we go a train 50 wagons but still no no a little one but oh my word it's great to see the trains going across them it is yes it is the force bridge had passed its test but building it had required multiple feats of engineering the massive piers supporting it needed to be built underwater in an estuary deeper than the north sea the solution was in brave new technology they build them with the caisson method so caissons are basically big round cylindrical watertight structures they were built on the beaches in queensferry and then floated out into the sea they weighed them down until they sank to the seabed and then they pumped all the water out and filled them with compressed air and then you've got a nice working chamber for the men to be in the caissons were monsters that captured the public imagination it thought they were the largest ever built in britain but inside them deep underwater men excavated mud in dark damp conditions they faced a danger unknown to victorian medical science so there's a thing called case on disease which is now more commonly referred to as the compression sickness or the benz even and it is caused by a change in amulet pressure and because people weren't aware of the dangers they came back up to the surface too quickly and it didn't give their bodies time to adjust to change in pressure and that then causes small bubbles of gases that can build up in your body and it can lead to things like rashes and joint pain but also a lot worse even death at least one man died from caisson disease and countless others were injured building this enormous bridge was a risky job below and above the waves the men working on the bridge were known as briggers from the scottish word for bridge more than 4 000 of them had come here for work [Music] jenny meldrum is a historical researcher who's worked to ensure the brigas stories are never forgotten jenny tell me about the men who built this bridge what sort of men were they they ranged and the youngest were in their early teens i think 12 13 and the oldest ones were in their 60s so a full age range but paint me a picture of what it must be like to be working you know up there in the middle of the first or fourth i think one of the first things that you would notice was the noise this was a huge construction site it was a busy noisy place and then you factor in the weather i mean a storm can whip up pretty quickly here and you've got guys working at height hanging on the ends of ropes walking out on girders and things no safety gear no hard hats yeah some place to work by the end of 1887 430 injuries had been recorded on the site people were crushed in machinery people had clothing caught in machinery obviously people fell from heights is there any one case that stands out for you one that always comes to mind is a young man called michael um he was second generation irish immigrant stalk and michael obviously fancied his chances of you know getting involved and working on the bridge and sadly he was only in his late teens when he fell from one of the cantilevers michael was just one of over 70 men who died while working on the fourth bridge as the injuries piled up the company behind its construction william aryl and company had to act there was a second accident fund which asked for a contribution from the men's wages and that i think was an hour's pay per week that they paid into this that must have been pretty groundbreaking was it it was had that been done before not as far as i know and i think this might have been the first construction site to have something like that [Music] there were other welcome changes for the briggers shelters providing hot food and tea protected them from getting drenched they were given free waterproofs woolen jackets and boots you said they were your heroes yes why their legacy first of all this is a remarkable construction there's there's nothing like in the world and they were part of that for me i can't look at the bridge without thinking of the briggers if they stood as we are today and look back on something like that you've got to be proud of that when it opened in 1890 the fort bridge blew its nearest rival out of the water at just over a mile and a half it was over a thousand feet longer than the poughkeepsie cantilever bridge in america [Music] the fourth was the longest and highest cantilever bridge in the world an international symbol that the victorians had reached the pinnacle of bridge building today it's a unesco world heritage site the force bridge provided the first continuous railway route from london to aberdeen opening up the north to trade and travel from the south [Music] the bridge and railway boom continued hand in hand and as the great western railway spread into the west devon was connected with the rest of britain it became a holiday playground for wealthy victorians who lapped up its balmy weather and stunning scenery this was the english riviera but further west than that there were people who needed a bridge more than ever before [Music] cornwall was cut off from devon and the rest of britain by the river tamar more than a thousand feet wide in places the river was a major victorian military hub [Music] the estuary may have been vital for the navy but it was getting in the way of trade and tourism cornwall hoped to be the next victorian holiday hotspot but to get there passengers and goods were forced off the train and onto ferries when they reached the tamar river and that put people off it was time to build a bridge and get over it and this is the result the magnificent royal albert bridge brunel had triumphed with a superstructure that was over 33 meters high to allow the navy to sail under it the suspension bridge has two sections with curved tubes making it strong enough to span the turbulent tamar its unique design was unlike anything else seen on the victorian railway network local historian bruce hunt has researched the huge benefits that this bridge brought to the local community did brunel get local people to do the work or were the special workers for the main construction uh professional navis that would follow around the railway tracks as they were being built and moved over the country a lot of the local people ended up doing the work on on the building the peers themselves and the brickwork and that type of thing as well as much needed local employment there were other benefits for this one sleepy community it was a complete tourist attraction at the time and for many years afterwards when they were actually floating out the spans people came from all over the southwest and further afield to watch it not just by boat and river but into the fields around and they would line the hills along the bank i know it was a big day out more than 20 000 people came to watch the first section of the royal albert bridge being put into place [Music] enterprising locals saw a chance to cash in one of the farmers rented out part of his field or allowed people in for a small fee so people were making money out of it around the side marquis along the key it was a big tourist draw the royal albert bridge was opened in 1859 by prince albert himself brunel was too ill to attend the grand opening ceremony it was hoped the bridge would open up rail travel from devon to cornwall for the very same working class day trippers who had watched it being built but the irony in this iron bridge was that it was not a bridge for all rail travel cost three pence a mile at the time a big chunk of the average wage the poor simply couldn't afford to cross it the railways did not see a lot of profit in moving people cheaply so they concentrated on the on the upper classes and they would take their entourage with them and the maids and possibly the horses as well to get to cornwall the working classes stuck with the ferry are just a hate near ride or took their chances sneaking across the bridge when the station master wasn't looking the bridge was an engineering marvel but it would also be brunel's swansong so did he ever get to see it properly and cross it i think once but brunel was not a well man then he came down not long after it had been opened and he was wheeled across on a flatbed trolley and to examine the bridge and six weeks later he died and that's when they decided that they would put his name on the end of the pillars [Music] it's hard to imagine what brunel must have thought as he gazed up at his masterpiece [Music] the royal albert bridge helped to slash journey times between london and penzance from two days to just 12 hours west coast fish fruit and veg were still fresh when it reached london and heading the other way millions of tourists poured into newquay one of the first towns to develop for visitor trade [Music] [Applause] during queen victoria's reign thousands of bridges large and small took the railways to where they'd never been before these impressive structures transported people and goods created employment built fortunes in london a new bridge building challenge lay ahead one which would require the victorians to pull together everything they'd learned so far queen victoria's bridge builders were opening her realm to tourism and trade britain was at the top of its game and in the south its capital city was booming london 1860 heaving with humanity three million people call the capital home and over the next 40 years that number is going to double the capital was the largest city in the world and the thames the busiest river and the pool of london was heaving with ships full of exotic transatlantic cargo the population was exploding on both sides of the thames and those people needed to cross the river but a traditional bridge would cut off access for tall cargo ships the victorian solution was unveiled in 1894 tower bridge was the largest and most sophisticated moving bridge ever built it catapulted the concept of the medieval drawbridge into the future chris earley is the bridge master as the boss of tower bridge no one knows more about its importance what you see is a fairy tale castle on the river but of course that's all stone cladding what's actually beneath that makes tower bridge unique it is three different types of bridge there are the chain elements that we can see behind us which are the suspension bridge there are the parts of the bridge that raised to allow the movement of river traffic and there's the girder section as well even it was all about showing off the victorian ingenuity and did it work from the outset it did and it it needed to work especially on that opening day when the first bridge lifts took place to huge ceremony on the river to a huge flow tiller of all sorts of vessels the prince of wales officially opened it so it had to work that day tower bridge wasn't always going to be this way its designer horace jones had at first wanted to build every schoolboy's dream actually as part of his original design it would have been a drawbridge so enormous chains coming from the frontal the elements of the bridge that move that would have been pulled back into the into the towers it was a nice idea but a drawbridge wasn't powerful enough to lift two giant slabs of road weighing over a thousand tonnes each the victorians needed another solution it was only as the design progressed that you see the bascule system which is based on balance rather than a drawbridge system the only way to see what makes this bridge tick is to go to its very heart it just looks wonderful doesn't it deep inside two steam engines pumped out 360 horsepower each feeding the hydraulics that raise the bridge the whole dance was controlled by just one piece of precision engineering that's the steam governor you can see they're moving in the middle so what does it do so it regulates the entire movement of all the pistons and everything comes from that one that one central system everything is revolving but in a sense it's all revolving around that around that exactly exactly when you look at it though there's something about victorian engineering isn't there you know it's all beautiful brass and you know it's like the time machine and h.g wells so how does it work we call it a simple system but we know it off by heart um so the whole idea is that the um the coal uh boilers coal would have come off the thames would have fed the boilers and that would then drive these steam engines which would actually raise the bridge more than 80 men work continuously here ensuring that the nation's most iconic bridge kept moving when it was working in its heyday what would it have been like here the rooms would have been full of smoke and steam but also a lot of human noise as well people shouting at each other to get things done in a certain amount of time they'd be cooking their bacon and eggs for breakfast on the call boilers next to us as well so they're shouting their orders for food and these sorts of things it took eight years and over 400 workers every day to build tower bridge entire families were employed in rivet gangs earning a penny for each rivet they hammered into place the most daring workers achieved fame and fortune one of the rock stars of his time jack bateman known to his friends as ginger was one of the victorian divers that laid the foundations here and to give you an idea of a danger pay at the time he was paid 10 pounds a minute 10 pounds a minute yeah absolutely in the 1890s probably one of the highest paid i'd say the highest paid person who was working here as part of the construction once built the bridge was a hit not least the high walkways which held an unexpected attraction for some has that always been open um it's not always been open no and the city closed the uh the high level walkways as a pedestrian route at the time that ladies of the night were using the walkways as their workplaces there wasn't a desire to police that so they closed it to the public tower bridge had a far-reaching impact on the london landscape [Music] it allowed the wealthy to cross to the south bank leading to its development as an entertainment and commercial district [Music] its design inspired bridges across the world from chicago to russia tower bridge was so famous an urban myth has it the americans were desperate to buy it in their haste they bought london bridge by accident the million pound deal went through and london bridge is now a major tourist attraction in arizona you're the bridgemaster have been for more than a decade how much of a symbol do you think of high victorian engineering is tower bridge i think it does very much represent um the entire uh victorian empire you know as far as it being the industrial revolution the driving forward of of look this is what we can do showing the world what what they were capable of and this was the symbol of that on this journey i've seen how the victorians battled to control nature and tame wild waters to make their bridges reach further than ever before engineering visionaries pushed iron and steel to their limits in the biggest strongest most ingenious structures ever seen they connected communities they opened up the furthest reaches of the country to trade into tourism built to last the best of them still stand a link to the victorian ingenuity and bravery that created the nation we know today next time i find out how the victorians invented the great british seaside holiday people were coming in by their droves it jam-packed with entertainment i learned why blackpool became a mecca for the newly mobile working class it made a mill girl feel like a duchess for the day and discover how epic engineering became the main attraction it was about novelty it was about thrilled they loved fairground rides and of course this would have been something absolutely unique to them

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 91,599

Rating: 4.9089069 out of 5

Keywords: history documentaries, absolute history, world history, ridiculous history, quirky history

Id: Hv4IKeDy10I

Length: 42min 46sec (2566 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 24 2021