Peter Bruff

Peter Schuyler Bruff (23 July 1812 – 24 February 1900) was an English civil engineer and land developer[1][2] remembered primarily for his part in establishing the East Anglian railway networks between the 1840s and 1860s.

His contribution to the region's infrastructure and development extended far beyond the railways, however, and included the renovation of the Colchester water supply (1851-1880) and the Ipswich sewerage system (completed 1881), the development of the town of Harwich and the Essex resorts of Walton-on-the-Naze and Clacton on Sea (which he built up from an empty piece of farmland into a flourishing seaside town),[3][4] and (not least) the late Victorian revival of the Coalport porcelain factory in Shropshire, which he purchased in 1880.

[2] Bruff worked on the Eastern Counties Railway from Shoreditch to Colchester, which was constructed between 1837 and 1843, but was discharged from the Company in 1842 owing to disagreements with the chief engineer John Braithwaite.

[13] In 1851 Bruff, in partnership with William Hawkins, bought the Colchester Waterworks Company as an investment, as awareness of the relationship between water supply and public health increased.

Two years later he discovered a good spring near Sheepen Farm and brought water from that to Balkerne Hill, but this remained insufficient.

In 1880 the Colchester Corporation purchased the private waterworks and closed the Sheepen Farm source:[14] the Jumbo Water Tower was constructed soon afterwards (designed by Charles Clegg, the Borough Engineer).

Bruff developed the resort of Clacton-on-Sea, on a stretch of Essex farmland adjoining low cliffs, near the older villages of Great and Little Clacton.

Storage was provided for up to six million gallons of sewage and storm water, and was arranged so that the outlet was closed at high tide.

Following the death of William Pugh in 1875, the Coalport china works of John Rose & Co., in Shropshire, were wound up, and the business was purchased by Peter Bruff in 1880.