Climie Road (Stratford)

Just south of Stratford, Climie Road is one of several in the area named for early surveyors including Brookes, Finnerty, Bird, Sole, Skeet, Skinner and Cheal.

Climie Road is named after surveyor and engineer Henry Westcott Climie but there were at least three generations of engineering Climies.

Daniel Climie helped to construct the L & NW Railway in Britain.

After immigrating to Australia in 1860, he was contracted in 1875 as one of Wellington's first engineers. Daniel's son, Henry Westcott Climie, (1857-1929) became a pioneer surveyor and engineer in Taranaki.

He was part of the team that completed the controversial Government survey of south Taranaki's Waimate Plains in the 1870s. Between 1880 and 1890, Climie surveyed much of inland southern Taranaki and laid out roads in the area.

He then set up in private practice and designed a number of the roads and bridges in Stratford county.

In addition he was a consultant for the early Taranaki hydro-electrical schemes at Stratford, Pātea, Hāwera and New Plymouth and sewerage systems in Stratford, Eltham, Kaponga and Pātea.

His son, Henry (Harry) (1884-1961), was born in New Plymouth but educated in Auckland. After joining the family firm, H W Climie and Son, in 1910, Harry designed or advised on several North Island second-generation hydro schemes, including those at Tāriki (1924-29) and New Plymouth (1924-31). After a stint in earthquake-devastated Napier in the 1930s, he was appointed chief engineer of the state housing department in Wellington in 1937.

Harry's brother, Robert, (1886-1965) also joined the profession and was Inglewood borough engineer in the 1920s.

There is also a Climie Crescent in Hāwera named for H W Climie.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.