Collection SummaryThe Georges River Bridge, widely known as Tom Uglys Bridge, was opened 11 May 1929 and carries the Princes Highway across Georges River from Horse Rock Point, Sylvania to Tom Uglys Point, Blakehurst. Dual bridges were created when a second crossing was opened to traffic on 17 October 1987.HistoryPrior to construction of the bridge, traffic was carried across the river by two punts running side-by-side at this crossing, and at weekends waits of up to four hours were the experiences of many motorists.
When embarking for Europe in 1923, with plans of the Georges River Bridge, Councillor C. J. Monro, President of the Sutherland Shire Council told The Hurstville Propeller “With the bridge the districts of St. George and Sutherland must develop tremendously […] The bridge must be built and built quickly”.
The steel truss road bridge, one of Percy Allan’s last major bridge works, was built by Sutherland Shire Council with loan funds, and a toll which was levied to repay the loan was removed in 1952.
On its completion, Tom Uglys Bridge was the longest road bridge in the State, with a 499.8 metre carriageway. At the time the bridge was the second longest steel box girder bridge in the world, the first toll bridge in Australia, and the only bridge of any magnitude ever undertaken by a council in Australia.
The construction of Tom Uglys Bridge enabled the St. George County Council to extend the supply of electricity across the Georges River to Sylvania, which had remained without power until 1928. It also provided work for hundreds of otherwise unemployed men during the years of the Great Depression, and during World War II the bridge was prepared for demolition in case there was a successful enemy landing at Cronulla and a subsequent invasion of Sydney from there.
The bridge sparked innovation, including issuing white coats to the toll collectors to distinguish them at night, the invention of an automatic toll-collecting machine in an attempt to discontinue the ticketing system of collecting toll and overcoming the resulting congestion, and in 1935 the installation of lamps on the bridge that consumed only two-thirds of the current used by ordinary lamps and gave twice the brilliance.
Construction began in 1984 on a second bridge for southbound traffic and was financed by the Australian Government as part of a nationwide road development program to celebrate Australia’s bicentenary in 1988. The opening of the new bridge in 1987 doubled the capacity of the crossing, alleviating one of Sydney’s worst traffic bottlenecks. The bridge is a composite steel and concrete structure carried by three identical steel box girders positioned side-by-side on reinforced piers over nine spans. The lengths of span and the vertical clearance above water were designed to match the old bridge so as not to impede water traffic.
Though the duplicate bridges are close together they are not parallel, avoiding tight curves on the southern approach to the 1929 bridge being replicated.
