Talk:Wearmouth Bridge (1796)

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Thomas Paine

I'm not convinced that the designer of the bridge was this Thomas Paine who was rather busy getting arrested, imprisoned and nearly executed around that time. I doubt he had time to design a bridge. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:45, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some related commentary: Talk:Thomas_Paine/Archive_1#Proper place of para on Paine the inventor — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:48, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It was certainly the American revolutionary Thomas Paine. This is the text of the letter he wrote to the US Congress in 1803 on the subject. [1] Quite how much input he had into the specific design at Wearmouth is debated, but he did spend years trying to persuade people to use cast iron for bridges, and to use much flatter arches than were used at Ironbridge, even going so far as to have a 200foot demostration bridge built at Paddington in the grounds of a pub called The Yorkshire Stingo. Hallucegenia (talk) 19:15, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Amazing that one person can do so much! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:56, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

1857 bridge

It seems that the bridge built by Stephenson and opened in 1857 was a completely different design of bridge. I wonder if we should consider a separate article for this bridge? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:57, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I understand he rebuilt the superstructure and the carriageway, but kept the original six main ribs, so it was really the same bridge. So I'd keep it in the same article. But an image or photograph or two would be really helpful. Regards, Hallucegenia (talk) 13:44, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We have a couple of photos in commons:Category:Wearmouth Bridge (1859) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:21, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]