Daniel Miller (1825 - 1888) was a 19th-century Scottish civil engineer and inventor remembered as a harbour and bridge-builder.
He was born on 9 January 1825 the son of Isabella Paul and Stephen Miller, a coppersmith and brassfounder, living and working at 48 Saracens Lane in Glasgow.[1] The premises was taken over by Walter Macfarlane in 1850 and became world famous as the Saracen Foundry.
Daniel was apprenticed to Gordon & Hill and here he met Robert Bruce Bell (1823-1883) with whom he later went into partnership.[2]
In 1850 he was working without Hill at 13 Robertson Street as Daniel Miller & Co.[3]
Around 1855 he teamed with Robert Bruce Bell with offices at 32 St Vincent Street.[4] By 1860 they are listed as Bell & Miller with Miller then living at 4 Bothwell Street.[5] They were the official engineers to the Clyde Navigation Trust and the Glasgow Bridges Trust.[6]
He died on 28 September 1888 at "Craigburn" on Albert Road in Gourock. He is buried in Craigton Cemetery in south-west Glasgow.[6]
Although both partners were dead, the practice of Bell & Miller continued until the 1890s.[7]
They also did harbour works in Alexandria, Egypt and on the Baltic coast in Riga.
They engineered water supply schemes for Grangemouth and for Rio Grande and Pelotas in Brazil.