The contractor originally given the role of building the Scarborough Grand Hotel from Cuthbert Broderick’s plans was Daniel Climie. Daniel Climie was a Scot born in Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire in Scotland, in 1814. His father was a farmer, but was doing well as he kept a servant according to the 1841 census records. In 1844, Daniel had moved to Devon and married Jane Esther Austin. They moved to Shrewsbury, Shropshire where they settled and had a family of six children. Daniel was very ambitious and was a talented civil engineer. He began working on railways in Devon at a time when the whole country was excited about this new means of transport. Every town and village wanted to be accessible via the railway because it was well known that railways brought prosperity. Daniel didn’t just work in his local area; he sought out contracts all over the country. He built the pier in Western Super Mare, Somerset (started in October 1864); a new harbour, tramway and pier in Hastings, East Sussex (begun in June 1864) and he built the Devon and Somerset railway. He also expanded the cattle market in Shrewsbury, as well as building several houses there, including one terrace called Honiton Terrace, named after his wife’s hometown of Honiton in Devon. Finally, in 1864 he started to work in Scarborough, receiving the contract to build the Cliff Hotel (later known as the Grand Hotel) and also a railway between Scarborough and Whitby. In order to supervise this work personally, he sold his house in Shrewsbury and all its furniture to move to Scarborough.
All this seemed to happen in a relatively short timespan. There was a lot going on for Daniel’s company in 1864, with Hastings, Western Super Mare, the Devon and Somerset railway as well as work in Scarborough. He lost the contract for working on the Devon and Somerset railway because of a dispute, but it was the building of the hotel in Scarborough, which was later to be called the Grand Hotel, that ultimately led to his downfall. According to an account of court proceedings, which took place in 1865, the problems Daniel Climie had were brought on by a dispute with the Cliff Hotel Company and Cuthbert Brodick. The document goes into detail about arguments over the progress made in the building and the payments due at each stage of the work. Daniel Climie says that the work was going to plan and even got independent verification from a London surveyor that the work done was of a good quality, whereas the Hotel company disputes this and says that the work was progressing slowly and was not up to the required standard. It seems that at this stage in the project, the Cliff Hotel Company was running out of money and was trying to delay paying Daniel for the work in order to save themselves. In late 1865 the Cliff Hotel Company was wound up. Newspaper reports say that Daniel’s failure to complete work on the Cliff/ Grand Hotel in Scarborough was for reasons out of his control which seems to have been exactly right.
Sadly, in April 1867, Daniel was listed as bankrupt. These days, bankruptcy doesn’t seem that bad, after all, now you can carry on with your life after such an event. In Victorian times, however, it wasn’t so easy and bankruptcy was relatively rare. Daniel was very unlucky, if he had become bankrupt in 1869, he would not have to go into prison as a debtor. However, this was 1867 and so he did and also had to pay off all his debts before he could be released. His assets were all sold, including his building yard and stock. Not a man to give up though, his next move at the age of about 51, was transport his whole family all the way to Melbourne, Australia to start a new life as the agent for “Mr Fairlie’s system of railways”. This is a narrow gauge railway system, which originated on the Welsh Ffestiniog railway and was invented by Robert and Archibald Fairlie (fellow Scots). In fact Daniel’s daughter Alice, married Charles, the son of Archibald Fairlie.
Daniel is shown arriving in Australia in 1870 and then moving on to Tasmania before a final move to Wellington in New Zealand in 1875. He lived in the Melbourne area for a few years, where his brother John had settled in 1859. Both brothers were civil engineers working with the railways. They both then moved to Tasmania, to survey for the railways there.
On Daniel’s arrival in New Zealand, the local Wellington Evening Post Newspaper of 27th April 1878 shows he was straight down to work. In this article it explains how Daniel worked on the city of Wellington drainage scheme. Disease was a problem in the city at this time, with outbreaks of cholera and typhoid. Daniel proposed a scheme to take sewage away from the city and use it as fertilizer on some barren land outside. In his death notice in the same newspaper of 30th September 1890, it says he is well known for this project as well as for the first survey for the Wellington to Manwatu Railway. In the Wellington area there is a Mount Climie, which was named after the family (it could have been Daniel, or his sons who were also engineers). There is still a firm of engineers in New Zealand, called Climie and Co.
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