This page contains details of other places you can locate information about the West Gate disaster and its aftermath. Please let us know if there is something you think we should include.
You can read where to find our work on our publications page.
Construction and collapse
A comprehensive history of the collapse is available on the website of the West Gate Bridge Memorial Committee. This is the key place to go for information about the West Gate collapse and the memorials, and for stories from survivors and others who worked on the bridge. The website also includes large excerpts from journalist Bill Hitchings’ book, West Gate, published in 1979. We thank the Committee for their assistance with our research.
The original telecast of the ABC news on the night of the collapse is available on You Tube.
The Report of the Royal Commission into the collapse is available on the Memorial Committee’s website. The full transcripts of the Royal Commission are available at the Public Records Office of Victoria and some libraries will have copies.
In 2010, for the 40th anniversary of the collapse, the Public Records Office of Victoria held an exhibition based on their archival records. An online exhibition comprising some of this material can be viewed at the Google Cultural Institute.
A podcast of a 2018 symposium about the bridge, which was part of the Art & Industry Festival, is available on SoundCloud.
Memorials
There are several memorials related to the West Gate. With the exception of the West Gate Garden, all are located underneath the bridge on Douglas Parade in Spotswood. This is also the location of the annual memorial event on 15 October.
- Memorial Plaque (1978): A memorial plaque, paid for and erected by the bridge workers, was unveiled on the bridge on 15 October 1978. You can view a photo of the plaque and the inscription on the Memorial Committee website.
- West Gate Garden (1994): Several fragments of the collapsed section of the bridge are part of the West Gate Garden, opened at Monash University in 1994. Housed outside the Engineering Faculty, it ‘is said that these twisted fragments were placed in the West Gate garden to remind future engineers of the consequences of errors’.
- Memorial Park (2004): A memorial park opened in 2004 and incorporated the original plaque within this redevelopment. 35 plinths to memorialise the 35 lives lost were installed. The park was funded by the Victorian state government, and designed in conjunction with the Memorial Committee. The park incorporates an older memorial to six construction workers killed in a sewer collapse in 1895.
- 40th anniversary plague (2010): Workers involved in the government funded West Gate Bridge strengthening project unveiled a plaque on the 40th anniversary on 15 October 2010. The inscription can be read on the Memorials Australia website.
- Joe Owens Memorial (2011): A memorial plaque to Joe Owens was placed on the other side of the stone holding the 40th anniversary plaque. Owens was killed in 1972 while working as a rigger on the bridge, after construction recommenced.
Cultural responses to the collapse
In 1990 Vicki Reynolds wrote the verbatim theatre play The Bridge, which was directed by Donna Jackson. Jackson and artist Bindi Cole Chocka (daughter of Vicki Reynolds), organised performances of the play again for the 2018 Arts & Industry Festival. You can read a discussion between them, alongside an excerpt from the play, published by Overland.
Writer and academic Enza Gandolfo recently published a novel called The Bridge (Scribe 2018) which draws on the collapse to explore issues of class and race in Melbourne’s West. The book was shortlisted for the Stella Prize.
In 1970 Ken Mansell wrote a song about the disaster, which was released on EP vinyl in 1971. You can read the lyrics and hear it sung on the union songs website.
Singer Mark Seymour (formerly Hunters and Collectors) wrote a song about the West Gate Collapse. You can listen to it on his You Tube channel.
Lucy Guerin developed the dance piece Structure and Sadness , based on her research about the collapse. The work was awarded a Helpmann Award for Best Dance Work.