David Kirkcaldie (December 1848 – 5 September 1909) was a Scots-born railway executive in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

History

Kirkcaldie was born near Leven, or

Kirkcaldy Kirkcaldy ( ; ; ) is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh and south-southwest of Dundee. The town had a recorded population of 49,460 in 2011, making it Fife's second-largest s ...

, in

Fifeshire Fife ( , ; ; ) is a council area and lieutenancy area in Scotland. A peninsula, it is bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the south, Perth and Kinross to the west and Clackmannanshire t ...

Scotland. At age 13 he entered the service of the North British Railway Company, or Leven and East of Fife Railway, and remained in that service for 15 years. He had the opportunity for promotion to the

Great Indian Peninsula Railway The Great Indian Peninsula Railway (reporting mark GIPR) was a predecessor of the Central Railway (and by extension, the current state-owned Indian Railways), whose headquarters was at the Boree Bunder in Mumbai (later, the Victoria Terminu ...

, Bombay (present-day

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

), but was afraid the weather would not be healthy for him, so instead emigrated Australia, joining the New South Wales Railway service in 1876 as a clerk in the office of the Chief Traffic Manager for the Western and Southern lines. Three years later he was promoted to chief clerk in that section, then assistant traffic manager for the Southern and Western lines under William Vero Read (died 1922). In 1889 the office was made redundant by the opening of a bridge over the Hawkesbury River; Read was made Railways Secretary in place of Donald Vernon (1839–1891), and Kirkcaldie was promoted to Chief Traffic Manager. He was appointed one of two Railway Commissioners (the other being W. M. Fehon) under Chief Commissioner C. N. J. Oliver in 1897. In 1901 both Fehon and Kirkcaldie were offered the position of Chief Commissioner of Victorian Railways, and extracted from Parliament a £500 pay rise from £1500 to £2000 p.a. to keep them in NSW. Tense relations between Oliver and Kirkcaldie led to a royal commission, resulting in the three-commissioner system being replaced by two commissioners, with Kirkcaldie (at £1500) as assistant to Tom Richard Johnson. He died following an operation for appendicitis, and his remains were buried at St Thomas' Anglican Church,

Enfield, New South Wales Enfield is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 11 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district in the Local government in Australia, local government area of Municipality of ...

Family

Kirkcaldie married Alice Angela Mountain (died 29 September 1933) on 8 June 1884; they had three daughters. *Katherine Vida Kirkcaldie (born 2 June 1885) was Army nurse during WWI * Rosa Angela Kirkcaldie (born 3 June 1887 – 4 August 1892) also Army nurse during WWI *Grace Dymphna Kirkcaldie (28 December 1888 – 3 March 1979) married Alec D. Ellis in London on 20 August 1918 They had a home "Teryawynia", Bridge Street,

Homebush Homebush is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 12 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Strathfield. The name o ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirkcaldie, David 1848 births 1909 deaths Railway commissioners of New South Wales