ABSTRACT
In 1924 when serious settlement to the piers of John Rennie’s Waterloo Bridge rendered it unsafe for traffic William Arrol and Company erected a temporary steel bridge. The company was later tasked with demolition of the old bridge in 1934, the process revealing high levels of workmanship in its construction. The New Waterloo Bridge, 1937–45, engineered by Rendel, Palmer and Tritton, designed in collaboration with Giles Gilbert Scott and in association with London County Council engineers was built by contractor Peter Lind. The result was a modern, functional, concrete bridge but which required precise and skilled work to the steel reinforcement. This paper, using documentary and photographic evidence from a number of archives, together with personal testimonies, considers the changing labour force, from demolition of the old bridge and as the new bridge progressed. Questions of skill and labour, conditions of work, and workmanship are examined in the context of both war and peacetime
