David Proudfoot

David Proudfoot (1838 – 20 March 1891) was a New Zealand engineering contractor and company director in Dunedin. He was born in Gilmerton, Midlothian, Scotland in about 1838.[1]

He was a Dunedin landowner and contractor, and was one of the promoters of the Dunedin Peninsula and Ocean Beach Railway. He owned the horse-drawn trams serving the suburbs of Dunedin and having a "virtual monopoly", until he sold them to the Dunedin City and Suburban Tramway Co in 1883 for £55,000.[2] He was the brother-in-law of newspaper proprietor Sir George Fenwick, owing to Fenwick's marriage to Proudfoot's sister Jane.

About 1883 he left Dunedin, and died in Sydney on 20 March 1891 while undergoing surgery.

References

  1. Sinclair, F. R. J. "David Proudfoot". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  2. Dunedin’s Matchbox Railway: The Dunedin, Peninsula and Ocean Beach Railway Company and Other Suburban Transport Ventures by J. A. Dangerfield p11 (1986, New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society. Wellington) ISBN 0-908573-45-6


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