Bridging the Great Fish River

An almost 150-year-old iron bridge over the Eastern Cape’s Great Fish River is a fine example of British civil engineer Joseph Newey’s contributions to bridge building in South Africa during the 19th century, writes Mike Burgess.

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In the early 1870s, English civil engineer Joseph Newey was headhunted by the Cape Colony’s

Public Works Department (PWD) to construct an iron-lattice girder bridge across the Buffalo River at King William’s Town (known as Qonce today), and another over the Great Fish River at Committees Drift.

Newey’s skill and tenacity during the construction of the Great Fish River bridge in particular led to the extension of his role at the PWD into the next century, during which time he was involved in many more bridgebuilding projects in the region.

PLANNING AND INITIAL CONSTRUCTION

After the completion of the King William’s Town bridge, Newey turned his attention to the construction of the bridge at Committees Drift, where a natural rock shelf had made the site a well-known place to ford the river.

Unsurprisingly, Committees Drift held significance for both the British and Xhosa, who spent most of the 19th century at war with each other.

The British started building the Committees Drift military post on the west bank of the Great Fish River in the mid-1830s to guard the wagon road between King William’s Town and Grahamstown (Makhanda).