Peter Bruff

Peter Schuyler Bruff (1812–1900) was an English civil engineer best known for founding the seaside resort town of Clacton on Sea, Essex, and for improving the lives of residents in the Essex towns of Walton-on-the-Naze, Colchester and Harwich. By the time of his death in 1900, Peter Bruff had helped turn what had thirty years before been an empty piece of farmland with a beach into the flourishing seaside town of Clacton on Sea.

Bruff was born in Portsmouth. While working with Eastern Counties Railway from Shoreditch to Colchester, he began work on the Chappel Viaduct, which was constructed between 1847 and 1849. The viaduct carries the Sudbury Branch Line across the Colne Valley in Essex. It stands 80 feet (24 m) above the river, has 32 arches and is 1,066 feet (325 m) long. The viaduct contains 4.5 million bricks. It was Bruff's dream for the line to Colchester to carry on as far as Ipswich but the railway company did not have sufficient funds. As a result, Bruff formed his own company, the Eastern Union Railway, and built the line himself, including the 361 yd (330 m) tunnel through Stoke Hill by Ipswich railway station.

While working on the Ipswich line in 1855 he bought a house, Burnt House Farm, in Walton, an already an established but unremarkable town on the Essex coast near Frinton. He began to work on developing Walton as a recognized seaside resort. He took a major step in accomplishing this when in 1867, having accomplished the Ipswich line, he built another railway line, to Walton. Peter Bruff's pier at Walton replaced an existing smaller pier which was blown down by a storm in 1881. Bruff was also responsible for the building of the Marine Terrace, South Terrace (destroyed by bombing in World War II) and Clifton Baths (today the Pier Hotel).

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