File:Fawcett-bridge-1884.jpg

English: Fawcett Bridge over the Richmond (now Wilsons) River at Lismore, New South Wales, Australia, at its opening in 1884 - engraving published in Australian Town and Country Journal, 5 Jul 1884 after a contemporary photograph (from article "Lismore Bridge", copy available at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/71014283). Between the viewer and the central bridge support can be seen (rather indistinctly in this reproduction) the original Government punt, which ferried horse drawn vehicles, persons, livestock and schoolchildren across the river for some years prior to the construction of the bridge; a clearer view of almost exactly the same scene is reproduced on p. 18 of "Then & Now" by Maurice Ryan, pub. by The Northern Star, 1998, ISBN 0959407030. A sliding section of the bridge was designed to open to allow the passage of tall river traffic to the area of Colemans Point, visible through the bridge, but this was less than 100% successful and led to the further development of the business area downstream rather than upstream from this bridge (Ryan, p. 9).