Henry Henderson Beattie

Henry Henderson Beattie was born at Seamills, Burntisland, Fife, Scotland, on 19 April 1828, the son of blacksmith James Beattie and Margaret Dewar. He married Janet Millar in 1850 and the journal records that he is said to have arrived in Sydney in 1854. Beattie worked as a shipwright and shipbuilder, laid down a slipway for the Australian Steam Navigation Company at Darling Island, Pyrmont, and built vessels including the Leichhardt and Tinonee. In 1874 he moved his shipyard to the Balmain East shoreline below Weston Street. He bought Balmoral House in October 1876 and moved his family there. He lived there as a widower until his death on 24 June 1911. The property was mortgaged during his shipbuilding career and his trustees later subdivided parts of the Balmoral estate.