According to NSW Government records, “a senior engineer who worked for the Department of Public Works, J. J. C. Bradfield is regarded as the 'father' of the Bridge”.

“It was his vision, enthusiasm, engineering, expertise and detailed supervision of all aspects of its construction,” a guide to the bridge published by NSW Government State Archives and Records says.  

Bradfield initially favoured building a cantilever overpass, without piers, but his “overseas research however, convinced him that tenders should be called for both cantilever and arch designs”.

In 1923 tenders were called for and 20 were received from six countries.

“On 24 March 1924 the contract was given to the English firm Dorman Long & Co of Middlesbrough England with a design for an arch bridge at a tender price of £4,217,721.00 (and 11 shillings and 10 pence) [3],” the guide says.

“Construction began on 28 July, 1923.

“The granite for the pylons was quarried near Moruya, where about 250 workers and their families lived in a temporary settlement.

“The two arches met at the centre of the span on 19 August 1930 at 10pm.”

In a story published in the Bay Post/Moruya Examiner in October, 2016, Professor Brad Pillans said the granite from Moruya was what made the Harbour Bridge so special.

The director of the National Rock Garden in Canberra, who last year accepted a huge lump of Moruya granite most gratefully, is a big rock fan.

“The giant pylons are purely for decoration and are not required to hold the bridge up,” he told the crowd assembled to welcome the granite to its new home last year.

“There are other bridges of the same design elsewhere in the world, happily standing up without pylons … it’s the pylons that make the bridge so great – made of large blocks of Moruya granite.”

Sixteen men died from injuries incurred in bridge-related workplaces, including some in Moruya.