The early Napier bridges

Writing to me from the United States, V. Viswanathan says that D.H. Rao’s research into the bridges of Madras reminded him that around 1940, when he was a child, his father, M.S. Venkataraman, took him to see the Napier Bridge under construction near the War Memorial.

 With his father at the time the Traffic Manager of the Port, he wonders whether it was a site visit to a job being undertaken by the Madras Port Trust.

 Or was it just a bit of sight-seeing?

 In which case, who built the bridge?

The first ‘modern’ bridge across the Cooum, with only railings on its side, was built c.1870 when Lord Napier was Governor (1866-72) and, naturally, took his name (Nothing changes, does it?). 

This bridge was strengthened very likely around 1915, during the Great War, with large iron girders on the sides (not unlike the Elphinstone Bridge over the Adyar) and became known as the ‘Iron Bridge’, the iron dominating the whole scene. 

With World War II necessitating a still stronger bridge to handle all the wartime traffic from the Port, the bridge was rebuilt again.

Work on the bridge with the “bowstring girder design” seen today began in 1939 and was completed in 1943.

 It is recorded that this was the first pre-stressed concrete bridge in India. 

With motor traffic growing phenomenally from the 1980s, the bridge needed to be widened. Instead, it was duplicated and the parallel bridge was opened in February 2000.

The pair of bridges, still called the Napier Bridge, is one of the more elegant official engineering constructions in Madras and should be on any Heritage List.

H :S Mutiah :3 nov 2014