The Victoria Bridge Build

June 1896, Bogle & Clark were awarded the contract to manufacture the Victoria Bridge over the North Esk River in Launceston. This took two years to complete and the price was £10,600.

The Bridge was officially opened on the January 10 1899. Only the raw materials were imported, as plates and pig iron, the whole of the casting and girders being made at the firm’s works. Pylons were manufactured with a thread or worm on one end and were screwed through the mud and down to the bed rock using a ratchet system and horses. Each of the pylons were then tested with a 100 ton weight being placed upon them. Between fifty and sixty men were employed during its construction. At the opening Alfred Blades ‘the well-known diver’ performed a somersault from the bridge into the river.