source: Victoria Falls Guide
….. Several leading firms tendered for the construction of the bridge but most were daunted by the task and in the end, only two firms, Dorman, Long & Co. and the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company of Darlington, were in the running. In May 1903 both parts of the contract were awarded to The Cleveland Bridge Company, to construct and erect the Victoria Falls Bridge for a price of £72,000.
source:website
“With few exceptions the bridge is constructed of rolled steel manufactured in England by the Siemens open-hearth acid process. All the plates and the principal angles were made by the Consett Iron Company, Durham. Material and workmanship were subjected to rigid inspection and proved to be of uniformly high character. The breaking stress of the tested pieces averaged 29.6 8 inches, and the limit of elasticity 60 per cent., all within a 2 per cent. margin of variation. The exceptions referred to consisted of steel forgings. No cast iron or cast steel was employed in the work. ” [Hobson, 1907]
source: wikipedia
William Edwin Pease (3 June 1865 – 23 January 1926) was an English businessman and Conservative Party politician from County Durham. Pease was educated at Clifton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.
He was born into the wealthy Pease family of Darlington, Quakers who had prospered through a variety of enterprises including railways, coal mines, woolen manufacturing and a family bank which collapsed in 1902. His father Edwin Lucas Pease (died 1899) was the grandson of Joseph Pease (1772–1846), an abolitionist and founder of the Peace Society. He became Chairman of the Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company some times after his father’s death in 1889, and was also a director of the Consett Iron Works.