1898: A Wednesday Afternoon Opening for a Truss Bridge in New South Wales

June 15, 1898

In what was then the British colony of New South Wales (NSW), a truss bridge built across the Hunter River in the town of Morpeth made its public debut. (NSW was a British colony until it became one of the states of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.) Morpeth Bridge was designed by the prolific civil engineer Percy Allan (1861-1930).

James Henry Young (1834-1908), NSW secretary for public works, officially opened the bridge during a Wednesday afternoon ceremony. This road bridge, which remains in service today, was added to the New South Wales Heritage Register in 2000.  

In 2021, architectural lighting was installed on the bridge to help commemorate the bicentennial of Morpeth’s founding. The accompanying photo of Morpeth Bridge lit up at night was taken in November of that year.

Photo Credit: Mitchell Griffin (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

For more information on Morpeth Bridge, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpeth_Bridge