All this reads sufficiently absurdly nowadays, but it is surpassed in curious interest by the remarks added by a Mr. Boscawen, who, after declaring that, before he had come down to the House he could not understand what possible reason there could be for building a bridge at Putney, went on to say that “now he had heard the reasons of honourable gentlemen, he was equally at a loss to account for them.”
And then, with concentrated satire, he proceeded: “If there were any advantage derivable from a bridge at Putney, perhaps some gentleman would find that a bridge at Westminster would be a convenience.”
It should be remembered here that the first bridge at Westminster was not opened until 1750. Until that date there was not any bridge between London Bridge and Putney. Hence the true inwardness of the sarcasm in Mr. Boscawen’s remarks already quoted, and of those now about to be set forth.
Thus he continued: “Other honourable gentlemen might dream that a bridge from the end of Fleet Market into the fields on the opposite side of the water would be a fine speculation; or who knew but at last it might be proposed to arch over the river altogether and build a couple more bridges; one from the Palace at Somerset House into the Surrey marshes, and another from the front of Guildhall into Southwark (great laughter). Perhaps some honourable gentlemen who are interested in such matters would get up in their places and propose that one or two of these bridges should be built of iron. (Shouts of laughter.) For his part, if this Bill passed, he would move for leave to bring in half a dozen more Bills for building bridges at Chelsea, and at Hammersmith, and at Marble Hall Stairs, and at Brentford, and at fifty other places besides.”
Bridges at all those places have long since been built, and, of course, many of them in iron; so the foolishness of one generation becomes the sober commonplace fact of the next.
The bridge thus hotly debated and rejected and at last permitted to be built, was eventually begun in 1729. It was wholly a commercial speculation. The Company interested in it had at the beginning to satisfy the claims of the Duchess Dowager of Marlborough, Lady of the Manor of Wimbledon, and of the Bishop of London, Lord of the Manor of Fulham, for the extinction of their respective rights in the ancient ferry. The Duchess received £364 10_s._, and the Bishop the meagre amount of £23. The three tenants of the ferry, however, received altogether as much as £8,000; and at the same time the Bridge Act provided for £62 per annum to be paid by the Company, in perpetuity, to the churchwardens of Putney and Fulham; to be divided between the watermen, their widows and children, for the loss of the Sunday ferry.