Lunchtime talk: 'Straight on with the Humber Bridge': The Rise and Fall of the 1931 Humber Bridge Bill

Tom White is giving a lunchtime talk at the Hull History Centre on Tuesday 10 November, from 12.30 to 1.30pm, on the interwar plans for a bridge across the Humber. It's a look at a project that almost happened, and the reasons why it didn't.

The story starts in October 1929, when the Hull Corporation paid a retainer to the engineering firm Douglas Fox & Partners to look at how to get across the river. They were weighing bridge against tunnel, and road against rail. In the end, Ralph Freeman's plans for a road bridge were the ones that made it through Parliament, which promised to cover seventy-five per cent of the cost. But that's where the trail goes cold: the scheme was shelved after the collapse of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government, the austerity that followed, and a bitter local battle over the proposal. White's talk draws on current research into those plans, so it's less about the bridge we eventually got and more about the one that stayed on paper.

The session is hosted by the Hull History Centre, which grew out of a drive to give people better access to the city's archives and to keep them better preserved. It now houses the combined collections of Hull City Council and the University of Hull, covering everything from the city's maritime heritage and the Second World War to the history of slavery, alongside figures like Winifred Holtby and Amy Johnson. It's a good place to be if you're into the city's past.

The talk runs from 12.30 to 1.30pm in the centre's lecture theatre, so it fits into a lunch hour if you're working nearby. It's free to attend, and you can find more details on the Hull History Centre website.