The Garden Bridge: Misunderstanding, War, and a Century’s Worth of History

On July 27, we’ll take an evening stroll along the banks of the Suzhou Creek, exploring its history and some of the 31 bridges that span its length. Some are delights, some surprises, some historic marvels—but none is more famous than the Garden Bridge. To book the walk, click this link: https://jinshuju.net/f/mZEw14

The 1908 Garden Bridge (Waibaidu Qiao 外白渡桥) is that rarest of Shanghai historic treasures: an original structure that is still being used for the same purpose for which it was built. And it’s got quite a story.

Before bridges spanned the river, ferry crossings were the only way to traverse the waterway. Traffic increased after Shanghai became an international treaty port in 1842, and the first wooden bridges were constructed (1853, the Fujian River Bridge). In 1856, the precursor to the Garden Bridge went up: the controversial Wills Bridge.

Bridge of Misunderstanding: The Wills Bridge

The collapse of a Chinese bridge near the confluence of the Suzhou Creek and Huangpu River spelled opportunity for British businessman Charles Wills of Jardine Matheson and American Edward Cunningham, who was simultaneously managing director of Russell & Co. and United States Vice-Consul. The entrepreneurial pair put together a consortium of investors to finance a new bridge to facilitate crossing between the British settlement to the south of the river and the American settlement to the north, raising $12,000 for the construction of a 450-foot span, complete with drawbridge.

Naturally, this was a for-profit venture, and so naturally, they charged a crossing fee: 5 taels annually for a horse and cart, one tael per year for an individual. The toll was applicable to both Chinese and foreigners, but as with many goods and services in Shanghai, the foreigners alone paid on credit – so when Chinese saw them crossing the bridge and no money changing hands, they assumed that their foreign compatriots crossed the bridge for free.

Outrage ensued, raised to a fever pitch when, in 1863, the fee was doubled (!) at the time that the American and British settlements merged (into the International Settlement). By 1870, as you might expect with a wooden bridge, Wills Bridge was in serious need of repair. But Wills had died in 1857, and Cunningham and the other Suzhou Creek Bridge Company investors ignored the Shanghai Municipal Council’s (SMC) requests to repair the bridge—instead, the consortium began planning for a new iron bridge in 1871. Poor construction plagued their efforts, and the foray was ultimately unsuccessful.

Tired of all the haranguing over this problematic bridge, the SMC constructed their own wooden bridge in 1873—the Soochow Creek Bridge–just to the west of the original bridge. They then bought out the owners of the controversial Wills Bridge, demolished it, and eliminated the toll.

And forever after, the free crossing was commemorated in the bridge’s Chinese name, Waibaidu Qiao 外白渡桥: according to Shanghai historian Lynn Pan, the name originally meant “foreigners’ outer ferry crossing bridge”, but following the elimination of the toll, the Shanghainese, with their wit and love of plays on words, changed the meaning to ‘outer free crossing bridge’. 

The Garden Bridge

The Public Gardens

In 1886, China’s first park was laid out at the northern end of the Bund, just next to the bridge. According to the sign outside, the Public Garden was  ‘exclusively for the use of foreign residents’. Yes: this was the famous ‘no dogs and Chinese’ park, and although both were excluded, that particular sign never existed—but that’s a whole nother story.  Thereafter, the Soochow Creek Bridge took its name from the new park, and became known as the Garden Bridge.

In 1906, the SMC, moving with the times, began construction on a replacement for the wooden Garden Bridge: a magnificent steel bridge that could accommodate both trams and cars. The bridge remained free, which should have ended the errant complaints of discrimination against locals.

Indeed, complaints might have been aimed in the opposite direction: The local governor (taotai in Wade-Giles) declined the SMC’s request for Chinese government investment in the construction of the new bridge. So residents of the Chinese municipality enjoyed free crossing of the Suzhou Creek from the 1870s thanks to the ratepayers of the International Settlement (a majority of whom, it should be noted, were wealthy Chinese, who were taxed but did not have the right to representation on the SMC until the 1920s).

The spiffy new bridge was crafted by the finest talent in the colonies: Designed by Singapore-based Howath Erskine (it later would merge to form United Engineers), it was constructed by Britain’s Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company, responsible for the dramatic Victoria Falls Bridge in today’s Zimbabwe, and opened in January 1908.

The Garden Bridge in Shanghai History

Thereafter, with its prime location, the Garden Bridge has been the setting for Shanghai history. The bombing of Zhabei in 1932 and later, the 1937 Battle of Shanghai, saw streams of refugees fleeing Hongkou and Zhabei across the Garden Bridge to the safety of the International Settlement, after which the bridge was effectively served as the border between the International Settlement and Japanese-occupied Hongkou, Japanese sentries at one end and Shanghai Volunteer Corps sentries at the other. No one crossed without a pass and a deep bow to the Japanese soldiers and no one’s passing was guaranteed by the notoriously brutal Japanese soldiers.

Shanghai’s development was so speedy that by 1932, calls were being made for the rebuilding of bridge, calling it an eyesore, and one that no longer fit the modern city that was being built all around it. “In the first place it is too narrow for modern traffic,” said the China Press, adding, “in the second and last place it is the ugliest structure imaginable.”

It was during another phase of Shanghai growth and development, when the bridge vanished, and yes, we panicked briefly. A century after it opened, in 2008 the entire structure was hauled off to Pudong for repairs: dismantled, steel rivets replaced, a century’s worth of rust removed, repainted, and reassembled, beam by beam. Chances are, it’ll be good for another hundred years.

Originally published here as Bridge of Misunderstanding, February 2008.