Darwent & Dalwood

Accountant Joseph Darwent (c. 1824 – 20 October 1872) arrived in South Australia aboard Posthumous in June 1849 in the employ of the South Australian Railway Company, an English company touting for the contract to build a railway from Adelaide to the Port.

[1] Darwent's nephew William Royse (6 April 1838 - 10 August 1892), born in Sheffield, was in Adelaide by 1859,[2] and in 1861 was in Dunedin, New Zealand, acting as shipping agent for Darwent's steamship Maid of the Yarra,[3][4] capitalising on the burgeoning trans-Tasman trade resulting from the Otago gold rush.

Caleb was licensee of Park Gate Hotel, Goodwood; Hannah ran it for four years after his death.

His business expanded to carting stone, for which there was a huge appetite, for the construction of buildings and for laying roads.

Their children included Frederic William, William, Augustus George, George Trevett Palmerston, Britannia Frances, Silva, Georgia Blanche, Olive Lavinia, Eva Beatrice and Constance Louise Gertrude; they had a home on Melbourne Street, North Adelaide.

[13] It therefore came as a shock to people in Adelaide to learn that Overseer of Works (northern section) McMinn had taken the extreme action of cancelling Darwent & Dalwood's contract as from 3 May, and had sent all their workers back to Adelaide, on the basis of their falling so far behind that there was no prospect of completion by 1 January 1872.

[15] In May 1875 William Dalwood brought his case for compensation before the Chief Justice and a special jury, arguing that his company had been sacked without just cause; that they could have completed the work by the deadline.

His claim was denied on the grounds that he was precluded by the terms of the contract from disputing the judgment and determinations of the Overseer of Works.