Learning from bridge failure – in 1838

Towards the end of last year, the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) hosted a seminar on ‘Learning from bridge failure’.1 Exactly 170 years earlier, Colonel C. W. Pasley of the Royal Engineers and a member of the ICE stood on the bank of the river Esk at Montrose in Scotland. He braced himself against the wind, as he sought to examine the serious damage that same wind had previously caused to the nine year-old road bridge across the river. Pasley had made a special detour to be there, referring to the reports of others and his engineering judgement, he...