Several vested interests, such as the Company of Watermen and the land owners who had the ferry rights, had been effective in stopping bridge building between London Bridge and Kingston bridge until Robert Walpole obtained the authority of the King and then parliament for Putney bridge in 1726/7. In 1736 the then Earl of Pembroke and a Company of Gentlemen obtained the passage of an Act for 'The Building of a Bridge across the River Thames from New Palace Yard in the City of Westminster to the opposite shore of the County of Surrey.' 175 Commissioners had responsibility for this project.
It was at first expected that the building of the bridge could be financed by the proceeds of lotteries. The first designs were for a stone bridge. Then it was to be timber, like Putney, then stone piers with a timber bridge and finally, again, a stone bridge. The stone piers of the bridge were built to the specifications and under the supervision of Francois Labelye a French-Swiss engineer whose qualifications for this are, apparently, unknown. He determined that these piers could be adequately founded on a timber raft laid on the gravel within pits dug into the river bed. He was wrong. The gravel bed found on one side of the river became sand on the other.
The Commissioners, whilst favouring a cheap timber bridge, had given two contracts for a timber construction across these piles. Then in 1740 they agreed Labelye's proposals for a stone bridge of thirteen arches. They placed him in sole charge without any increase in pay. However the delivery of the greatly increased quantities of stone required was frustrated by the activities of the navies from both sides in the Spanish War of Succession. The enemy's navy sank the coasters on their trips from Purbeck and Portland and the British navy press-ganged the crews wherever they went ashore. It was at this point that the lottery sales started to fail and then for some winters the Thames froze over. Labelye pressed on and in 1747 final completion looked likely. Then cracks started to appear in a pier which became lop-sided and stones started to fall from the adjacent arches. The pier and arches were rebuilt, the structure survived earthquake tremors in February 1750 and on Sunday 18th November of that year it was opened. Pembroke was dead and Labelye's efforts were poorly rewarded but, to quote from Geoffrey Phillips book 'Thames Crossings', 'For that day. and a short while afterwards, the splendid new bridge stood in all its glory, beautiful when the sunlight gleamed on its white Portland and pale-green Purbeck stone.' Certainly it was attractive enough to be painted and drawn some twenty times by Canaletto during his ten year residence in London from 1746. But presumably because of the failures during construction it was reportedly never trusted fully by the public and the many eminent engineers asked for reassurance by the Commissioners each condemned Labelye's lack of piling to the foundations.
From 1836-46 James Walker was required by a Parliamentary Committee to replace Labelye's structure piece-meal. As soon as he had done so he submitted designs for another, as did other eminent engineers, namely George Rennie, Charles Barry and Thomas Page. After much procrastination and dither Parliamentary Select Committees determined that a new bridge should be built. The Commissioners were disbanded and their responsibilities taken over by the Office of Public Building and Works. Thomas Page was appointed as engineer and Charles Barry as consulting architect to harmonise the bridge with his new Palace of Westminster. The bridge that stands today is to the north of where Labelye's crossed and Page very determinedly built to last. The foundations for the piers are massive and the piers themselves of 20 to 30 ton granite blocks.. The nine arches are constructed of fifteen wrought-iron ribs each, of which a few required repair in 1924. However his designs were doubted and an investigation which resulted in minor changes delayed completion by two years to May 1862. Page had anticipated a knighthood for his efforts but, supposedly because the delay put the completion back to shortly after Prince Albert's death, he did not get one. So he also probably thought himself hard done by as had Labelye.

O/S Co-ords:3047.7965
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Thames Crossings. Bridges, Tunnels and Ferries