The Making of William Edwards; or, The Story of the Bridge of Beauty

Others, richer than Davy, who had held aloof from the 'self-confident amateur,' as they called him, were moved by his newly-developed modesty, no less than by his indomitable perseverance and resolution (Rhys called it obstinacy) in the face of catastrophes that would have overwhelmed weaker men. And they honoured his integrity. When his fresh plans were ready, funds to 'assist' were ready also.

Over those plans he had pondered and prayed. Like a flash it came to his mind that, as the single arch was a strength in masonry, a double arch – that is, a circle – must have double strength, and on that he formed his plan, to bind the haunches of his bridge with cylinders of decreasing sizes, not to narrow his span of arch.

Once more the river-bed was cleared. But on the Sunday, before a stone of the new bridge was laid, he summoned his workpeople around him in the Druids' circle, and, standing upon the rocking-stone, he preached to them from the text, 'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it,' telling the story of his sudden conversion, of the failure of his other bridges as providential instruments to save him from overweening arrogance and self-sufficiency; and wound up with an exhortation that they should lay every stone as if they laid it before the Lord, who alone could decide whether this or that man's work was good or bad.

And so, week by week, as the work went on, Sunday by Sunday he preached and prayed amongst his men on that Druidical altar, consecrating it afresh to the living God, and dedicating himself and his life to the service of Christ.

In like manner, when the last coping-stone was in its place, and his workmen had gathered up their tools to depart, he knelt down upon the bridge, and dedicated that with prayer, saying at the last, 'Keep Thy servant from presumptuous sins. And be the glory Thine, O Lord.'

Thus, in 1755, when William Edwards was but thirty-six, he had completed his trinity of bridges over the terrible Taff. And there to this day it stands, fair to see, with the date of its erection upon it, a bridge with a wider span than the Venetian Rialto – a bridge pierced by three hollow cylinders on either side, rising gracefully with the magnificent arch as they decrease in size.[16 - The largest is nine feet in diameter.]

Upon the opening day, apart from the peasantry, the magnates of three counties flocked to see this wonder of a bridge, and the indomitable man who had created it, in the face of difficulties that would have daunted weaker men.

As one by one Welshmen of note bent from horse or carriage to shake hands with Mr. Edwards and congratulated him on the unrivalled structure his genius had created, and he was heard to say modestly in reply, 'I trust, with the blessing of God, this bridge will stand,' even Rhys admitted that, ''Deed, after all, Willem was a great man,' and Thomas Williams kept close beside him, as if desirous to share in his employer's glory.

For Mr. Morris, the staunch friend of William Edwards, there with due ceremony, breaking a bottle of wine upon the parapet, had named the bridge 'Pont-y-Pridd' – The Bridge of Beauty.

And when the loud acclaim had subsided, the speaker gave as a reason for the name, not alone the wondrous beauty of the structure, or the new features the self-trained builder had introduced into bridge-building, but that out of his failures he had built up an undoubted success, and out of seeming calamities built up another, if an unseen bridge, to span the turbulent River of Life and bear him securely across from this world to a better, the beautiful bridge of humble reliance on the Almighty Creator and Ruler of the universe.

POSTSCRIPT

From that day William Edwards' fame as a builder of bridges and smelting works was assured. But he could see defects in his Bridge of Beauty; the ascent to the centre was steep and toilsome, and although he was afterwards called upon to erect bridges, not only in Glamorganshire, but in Carmarthenshire and Brecknockshire, he built no more on the same model.

His handsome three arched bridge over the Teify is pierced with hollow cylinders over the piers, adding beauty to strength; but in that as in others he reduced the height with more regard to the useful than the picturesque.

He was a busy man, working for his family and the community six days a week, giving the seventh to divine service amongst his people – services so highly appreciated that in 1756 he was ordained to preach. And he was never a rich man, he gave so largely of his earnings to the suffering poor. And though he must have seen towns springing up around the ironworks he built, and highroads made to connect them, giving employment to hundreds of workers, he was nevermore heard to boast of his doings. He knew and owned that the capital of other men had set his brains and hands at work.

And when at a ripe old age he was laid to rest under the shade of Eglwysilan Church and its giant yews, he left his well-trained son David to inherit his fame and his faculty as a bridge-builder. But he never built a Pont-y-Pridd, and it is with the bridge and town of Pontypridd William Edwards' name is mainly associated, even by those who never recognise in him a pioneer of progress, a benefactor to South Wales.

Indeed, since his day, to meet the increasing traffic, a canal has been cut from Cardiff northward, and the very course of the River Taff diverted, changing the character of the district I have attempted to describe as it was in my hero's day. More recently a railroad to meet the ever-growing demands of ironmasters, colliery owners, and others, has been constructed, still further changing the face of the country, now bristling with iron and tin works. A new bridge has, moreover, been thrown across the river, somewhat higher up the stream, a bridge more in accord with modern requirements, and which has in a measure superseded high-pitched Pont-y-Pridd; but the beautiful old bridge is still standing, a picturesque monument to the memory of its persevering and pious builder, and a reminder to this self-sufficient generation, so proud of its own grand doings, that, but for William Edwards and his bridges and furnaces, progress in South Wales might have slumbered a generation or more.

THE END

notes

1

Pronounced Egloois-ilian.

2

Cwrw da, good ale. The w has the sound of oo; thus cooroo.

3

Rhys, pronounced Rees.

4

Fach, equivalent to the English dear.

5

Ales, pronounced Alis; in English, Alice.

6

Or, Eglwys-elian.

7

Culm, the dust of hard coal, used for fuel when mixed with clay and peat.

8

Duffle, made both in scarlet and grey, was a very thick, close-grained woollen cloth, its upper surface covered with pin-head curly knots. It was almost waterproof.

9

Linsey-woolsey, a mixture of linen and woollen, is still in use.

10

This was the old method of drawing coal and pitmen to the surface, until superseded by machinery. Wells and mills were similarly worked. And still horses are so employed to draw up yachts on the sea-shore, the rope passing round a block.

11

An oblong board about ten inches long by eight wide, on which the alphabets and simple syllables were painted. It was furnished with a handle. In many cases the letters were printed and covered with a transparent slice of horn. It was then called a hornbook.

12

God-penny – a deposit.

13

An oval wicker boat covered with hide, with only a single seat, as used by the ancient Britons, and by the Welsh far into the present century.

14

Dowlas, a coarse kind of linen.

15

Psalm xcv. 7, 8.

16

The largest is nine feet in diameter.