Bit rough that Levien’s Bridge, as the Queens Park bridge was colloquially known back in the 1860s, put said Levien out of work.

Benjamin Goldsmid Levien has been immortalised in Eugene von Guerard’s 1860 painting, Mr Levien’s hut on the Barwon, but the personal legacy of being turfed out of his punt business at the end of Aphrasia Street must have stung a little.

He’d experienced similar difficulties earlier, trying to run a punt and a pub on the Maribyrnong at Footscray. Competition, floods, inadequate trade made the going tough … but his strife was never as vocally proclaimed as the carry-on attached to the new bridge over the Barwon.

Trenchant royalist W. Stitt Jenkins wanted the bridge to stay as it was originally named – after Queen Victoria, the heavily German-accented British monarch of the Australian colonies.

Looking eastwards across the bridge.

Local weren’t so keen, they wanted to stick with their own Levien’s bridge – they also wanted a proper traffic bridge, not just a cattle crossing, as initially proposed.

All turned a bit filthy.

Looking west over the bridge.

Jenkins had been involved in the defending the name of the Prince Albert Bridge, down the bottom of Shannon Avenue. Locals wanted it called the Balyang Bridge. As he argued:

“The Prince Albert Bridge was named to commemorate a wise and righteous Prince, and therefore the name should be allowed to remain and not be lost amongst the common herd of princes for whom no man or woman cares.”

And furthermore, he bellowed, in the pages of this newspaper:

“I protest also against you or anyone else presuming to interfere with the name of the bridge that spans the Barwon near Mr Levien’s house. It is the Queen’s bridge and nothing else.”

Looking south toward the bridge; Von Guerard’s Mr Levien’s hut on the Barwon.

The Addy took it on the chin then fired back:

“Levien’s bridge is by far the better name, and Levien’s bridge we shall continue to call it.

“The most appropriate name for the Prince Albert bridge is the Balyang bridge, and the Balyang bridge let it in future be.”

Levien’s Bridge as the structure was affectionately known, initially.

To little avail as matters unfolded. But Vicky’s bridge needed rebuilding within a decade and, in 1880, was carried downstream by floodwaters. It was subsequently rebuilt, and then again in 1930, when it assumed the shape it maintains today.

Under water in 1909 Barwon flood; a new bridge in the 1930s.

Not without more scrapping, though, between the councils of Newtown/Chilwell and South Barwon over its 4000-quid cost.

These days, scraps related to the pretty Meccano-style bridge are pretty much restricted to the occasional motorist failing to honour the courtesy system of giving way to cars waiting on the opposite side.

And the occasional truck, or visiting international cyclist, stacking into it – ouch!

This article appeared in the Geelong Advertiser 24 February 2025.