Between 1882 and 1890, construction of one of the most ambitious engineering projects of the time took place near Edinburgh, Scotland. The project was to create a railway bridge that would span the Firth of Forth, one of Scotland's major tributaries, and connect the northeast and southeast of the country. The men who stepped forward to take up this challenge were Benjamin Baker (1840-1907) and John Fowler (1817-1898). Artist William Morris described it as "the supremest specimen of all ugliness," but their design became a national icon and set a new standard in engineering.
Baker and Fowler were chosen in 1882 to replace the previous designer of the Forth Rail Bridge, Sir Thomas Bouch, when one of his projects, the Tay Bridge, collapsed in 1879 killing seventy-five people. Baker and Fowler had an established pedigree of engineering in Victorian Britain, their achievements including the construction of the Metropolitan Line, the first underground line in London, as well as many other railway bridges. They opted to design a cantilever bridge to span the Firth of Forth, using 64,000 tons of steel as their building material. This was the first bridge to be built from this material.
The principle behind a cantilever bridge is one of balance. The bridge is projected out over the gap that needs to be spanned and counterbalanced at the shore end. Often two bridges are used, one from each side, and where the ends meet there is a third section, a simple beam bridge, to cover the gap. The idea of using cantilevers in bridges was not an entirely new one. But what made Baker and Fowler's construction unique was the sheer scope of the project.
