Further to the publication of this paper in Engineering History and Heritage 166(4): 207-226, http://dx.doi.org/10.1680/ehah.13.00007, the following amendments should be made.
Section 5.8 Size effects (paragraph 4)
….In which the Prussian and Paris standards are from Trapp (1992: pp. 223 and 226).
In his assumption of the tensile strength of wrought iron bars, Bandhauer took…
Section 6. Summary and conclusion (paragraph 2)
…It seems more properly to have been due to inadequate policing of the spectators. With the benefit of hindsight, however, it can be speculated that certain actions might have contributed to the accident.
The low cost estimate for the project no doubt placed constraints on the time and effort available to address the challenges encountered when executing an unprecedented design.
Wrought iron was still a new construction material, especially in bridge building, such that there was a general lack of design knowledge.
Making high strength chains from wrought-iron was also unfamiliar to iron masters normally making agricultural machinery and similar artefacts, and would not have been used to meet such high structural specifications.
The construction workers employed were not adequately skilled.
