Walter Simpson McClelland
Walter Simpson McClelland (1833-1904)
brother of Andrew Simpson McClelland
1904 Obituary [1]
WALTER SIMPSON McCLELLAND, second son of Mr. James McClelland, of Glasgow, was born in that city on the 29th November, 1833. He was educated first at Hofwyl, near Bern in Switzerland, and afterwards at Queenwood College, Hants.
After studying at Freiburg in Saxony, with the intention of becoming a mining Engineer, he was apprenticed to Mr. Neil Robson, of Glasgow, with whom he remained till 1854, when he joined the Army Works Corps as third in command and went to the Crimea, where that corps was employed in making roads and a light railway between Balaclava Harbour and the English camps.
In 1856 Mr McClelland returned home, and the Army Works Corps being broken up, he obtained a post on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, then in course of construction, and went to Bombay.
In 1863 he left the Railway, and went into business in Bombay, the firm being Scott and McClelland. They carried on several important works in Bombay, notably the beautiful Elphinstone Circle.
In 1869 Mr. McClelland returned home. Some monetary losses, however, obliged him to resume work, and in 1877 he took service with one of the native princes of Kathiamar, the Jam Sahib of Nowanagar, with whom he remained till the death of His Highness in 1895. He did much for the State, improving the towns and harbours, making roads and bridges, building schools, repairing tanks, etc., and planning a railway, since carried out, connecting Jamnagar with the rest of the Province. His last important work was the Victoria Bridge, close to Jamnagar. In 1881 he had built a larger bridge over the Machhu river for the Thakore Sahib of Morvi, and for the Rao of Cutch he constructed a breakwater at Mandvi, and a bridge spanning the Rukmawati river and connecting Mandvi with Bhuj, the capital. On leaving India in 1896 Mr. McClelland settled at Sevenoaks, in Kent, where he was made a Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the Sevenoaks Bench of Magistrates. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He died at Sevenoaks, from pneumonia, on the 1st of January, 1904. Mr. McClelland was elected a Member of the Institution on the 3rd December, 1867.