Catalogue description Records of the Penwortham Bridge Commissioners

DDX 1486/1 Records of the Penwortham Bridge Commissioners

DDX 1486/2 Miscellaneous records

For further records relating to the Penwortham Bridge Commissioners see DDX 497/1-62, QAR 5/14b and QAR 5/33-36.

Penwortham Bridge Commissioners

Deposited by Mr W Lonsdale, Bamber Bridge, 30 April 1965 (acc. 1938); additional deposit 19 April 1983 (acc. 5038)

Accession 1938 was originally given the reference DDX 518, but not catalogued. Accession 5038 was catalogued as DDX 1486. Both accessions have been fully catalogued or recatalogued here, though most of the original catalogue references assigned to accession 5038 have been retained. Accession 1938 comprises DDX 1486/1/4, 6-8, 11-12, 16, 18-31 and 2/2-3 accession 5038 comprises DDX 1486/1/1-3, 5, 9-10, 13-15, 17 and 2/1

The Commissioners were set up by Act of Parliament in 1750 (24 Geo. II c.36), with powers to raise by subscription sufficient funds to erect a bridge "between the Townships of Preston and Penwortham, near a place called the Fish House".

This bridge collapsed in 1755, but a further Act the following year (30 Geo. II c.55) gave the Commissioners authority to obtain £2000 from the county for its reconstruction. The present Penwortham Old Bridge was built as a consequence in 1759.

In little more than a century the bridge was recognised as being too narrow and inconvenient for the increasing amount of traffic using it.

The Commissioners were also conscious of a possible risk from the adjoining railway bridge, which had been constructed by the West Lancashire Railway Company to carry their line from Preston to Southport.

From 1882 a series of suggestions was put forward with regard to the building of a new bridge, one of which led to the Penwortham Bridge Act of 1885 (48 & 49 Vict. c.169). This Act authorised the justices of the peace to construct a new bridge: its powers, however, were not exercised but allowed to lapse. It was not until 1912 that action was finally taken with another Penwortham Bridge Act (2 & 3 Geo. V c.11), by which the County Council constructed the present Penwortham New Bridge and a new stretch of road which together took the Liverpool Road directly to the foot of Fishergate Hill. Under this Act the powers of the Commissioners were dissolved and responsibility for the Old Bridge was given to the County Council.

The records of the Commissioners from 1759 to 1913 remained in the custody of the last Clerk to the Commissioners, James Clarke, a solicitor with offices in Lune Street, Preston. His son, Thomas Henry Clarke, carried on the firm and the Commissioners' records subsequently passed down the family to the depositor, the great-great- nephew of James Clarke.

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