Mitchells Pass Bridge Lapstone A Convict built bridge

by Blair Stuart

Title

Mitchells Pass Bridge Lapstone A Convict built bridge

Artist

Blair Stuart

Medium

Photograph - Digital Images

Description

LENNOX BRIDGE, LAPSTONE, NSW - A CONVICT BUILT BRIDGE.

Work began on Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell's "Pass at Emu" in August 1832. About half way up the proposed route it was found necessary to take the road across a creek, a plan that required the bridging of a deep gully.

Mitchell, who considered well-designed bridges a sign of civilised society, seized the opportunity to experiment with a bridge designed to stand the test of time, unlike the flimsy wooden structures that characterised the colony's roads at the time. For this he needed the services of someone who possessed both the necessary technical knowledge and the experience of building stone bridges, a difficult request in a land where the art of bridge construction was virtually unknown.

The right man did, however, appear in the person of David Lennox, a recently arrived master mason of 20 years experience who had worked on a number of major bridges in Britain. Legend has it that Mitchell discovered him working as a day labourer constructing a stone wall in Macquarie Street, Sydney.

By November 1832, much of the stone for the bridge had been quarried and cut and, obtaining lime from Windsor, Lennox began the laying process. He selected his work party personally and carefully from the larger road gang working on the Pass. The party consisted of about 20 convicts, an overseer, a constable and an armed sentry and worked at the site from about 7am until 4pm, when it returned to the stockade at Emu Plains.

Despite the absconding of one convict, which held up the sawing of timber for the arch centering, Lennox's relationship with his convict workers appears to have been a good one. Assistant Surveyor John Abbott described Lennox to Mitchell as "indefatigable in instructing them how to work". Indeed, so effective was he that Governor Bourke let it be known that he would try to prevent the services of these newly skilled workers from being lost to the Department of Roads & Bridges after the Lapstone job was finished.

Lennox's confidence in his men was apparent later when, in May 1833, he was beginning to transfer operations to his next job. He petitioned the Governor to remit the remainder of the iron gang sentences of 8 convicts he wished to take with him. Although some of the sentences were, he said, "for heavy crimes, it appears to me to have been more the effect of a bad system at that time in regard to prisoners than any particular depravity of the prisoners themselves".

The convicts in question were: William Brady; John Carsons; Robert Hyams; John Johnson; Patrick Malowney (or Maloney); Thomas Nelson; James Randall; Daniel Williams (an "American black"). The sentences of Brady, Carsons, Malowney and Nelson were remitted while Randall and Williams were promised remittal of their sentences after a further 6 months good behaviour.

When Lennox moved his headquarters to the site of his next assignment - construction of a stone bridge over Prospect Creek on the Great Southern Road near Liverpool - he left the completion of the Lapstone Bridge in the hands of his young overseer, George Neilson, to whom he paid periodic visits until the work was finished. Lennox reported the bridge completed in early July 1833.

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June 19th, 2012

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