Explore Collections
You are here:
CollectionsOnline
/
Instructions for the engineers, architects and others, who propose to furnish the Committee for Letting the Bridge House Estates with designs or models, and estimates for a new bridge to be erected across the River Thames, in the stead of the present London Bridge.
Browse
BRIDGE-HOUSE ESTATES
Instructions for the engineers, architects and others, who propose to furnish the Committee for Letting the Bridge House Estates with designs or models, and estimates for a new bridge to be erected across the River Thames, in the stead of the present London Bridge.
London (Place), [1822].
[2] p. ; 41.7 cm. (2°)
Drop-head title. Signed and dated 'R.F. Newman, Comptroller of the Bridge-House Estates. 15th June, 1822'. On verso is a table of tidal levels 'observed from 23d September to 25th October 1820'. The competition to design a replacement for the old London Bridge, which had been condemned by the engineer John Rennie (1756--1821), judged by Soane, Nash and Smirke, was a failure, the assessors' original selections being disputed for lack of compliance with the printed instructions. The original winner was Charles Fowler but the decision was set aside after complaints from disappointed candidates, the three assessors washed their hands of proceedings, and the new bridge was eventually built by Rennie's son, also John, who was knighted in 1831 when the bridge was opened. See A.T. Bolton (ed.), The portrait of Sir John Soane, R.A. (London 1927), p. 357. Soane commissioned a painting of 'The Royal Procession at the Opening of London Bridge' by George Jones, 1831, hanging in the North Drawing Room at 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields and showing Soane and his housekeeper Mrs Conduitt among the crowd.
Copy Notes Received through the intervention of an anonymous (and disappointed) candidate with an undated letter signed "Nominis Umbra", probably in November or December 1822. (Priv. Corr. XII.C.2.2).
Binding Folded paper.
Reference Number 6272
Additional Names Blackfriars Bridge (London, England). Committee; River Thames (London, England); Newman, R.F
Instructions for the engineers, architects and others, who propose to furnish the Committee for Letting the Bridge House Estates with designs or models, and estimates for a new bridge to be erected across the River Thames, in the stead of the present London Bridge.
London (Place), [1822].
[2] p. ; 41.7 cm. (2°)
Drop-head title. Signed and dated 'R.F. Newman, Comptroller of the Bridge-House Estates. 15th June, 1822'. On verso is a table of tidal levels 'observed from 23d September to 25th October 1820'. The competition to design a replacement for the old London Bridge, which had been condemned by the engineer John Rennie (1756--1821), judged by Soane, Nash and Smirke, was a failure, the assessors' original selections being disputed for lack of compliance with the printed instructions. The original winner was Charles Fowler but the decision was set aside after complaints from disappointed candidates, the three assessors washed their hands of proceedings, and the new bridge was eventually built by Rennie's son, also John, who was knighted in 1831 when the bridge was opened. See A.T. Bolton (ed.), The portrait of Sir John Soane, R.A. (London 1927), p. 357. Soane commissioned a painting of 'The Royal Procession at the Opening of London Bridge' by George Jones, 1831, hanging in the North Drawing Room at 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields and showing Soane and his housekeeper Mrs Conduitt among the crowd.
Copy Notes Received through the intervention of an anonymous (and disappointed) candidate with an undated letter signed "Nominis Umbra", probably in November or December 1822. (Priv. Corr. XII.C.2.2).
Binding Folded paper.
Reference Number 6272
Additional Names Blackfriars Bridge (London, England). Committee; River Thames (London, England); Newman, R.F