Grave of Henry Fisher

menai_bridge_grave_henry_fisherHenry Fisher (d.1851)

Henry Fisher was the first superintendent of the Menai Suspension Bridge, which he had helped to construct in the 1820s. He died on the last day of 1851, aged 54.

Thomas Telford, who designed the bridge, remembered Henry when he came to write his autobiography in the 1830s. The book records that Henry “had assisted in putting up the ironwork” as foreman for Thomas Rhodes (a builder and engineer who helped Telford on many of his projects).

The autobiography also notes that Henry was appointed “bridge-keeper and principal toll-collector” towards the end of 1825. When the bridge opened in 1826, its 176-metre span was the longest in the world.

Henry’s wife Mary is also buried here. She died in April 1860, aged 61. They had at least four daughters. One of them, Emma, died aged 21 in 1850. Another, Elizabeth, married the Rev FH Pickworth, a Wesleyan minister, here at St Tysilio’s Church in 1848.

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