The great bulk of the land we now know as the centre of Clacton-on-Sea was originally farmland that belonged to Seaside House Farm, situated on the corner of what is now Rosemary Road East and Station Road in the area then known as Great Clacton Beach.

In April 1865, following the death of the farm’s owner, his son put the land up for sale and both the local and London newspapers carried an advertisement announcing that an auction was to be held in “June or July next” at which the “valuable freehold building land” known as Clacton Beach was to be sold off in lots. The advert also mentioned the "fine sandy beach”, “purity of the air” and the “extraordinary healthiness of the place” and that the owner was willing to discuss selling the land as one lot prior to auction.

One man who was interested in buying the whole 50 acre lot was an engineer called Peter Bruff. Bruff had built the railway from London to Colchester and was now engineer-in-chief of the Tendring Hundred Railway being built from Colchester to Walton-on-Naze.

Bruff’s intention was to build a genteel seaside resort for the Upper Middle Classes and, on completion of the sale, he immediately sought Parliamentary powers to construct a railway from Thorpe-le-Soken to a point just 60 yards from the cliffs together with a 300 yard long pier. The Thorpe and Great Clacton Railway Act was passed in July 1866, giving him the green light on condition that the railway and pier were completed within five years. The Act also laid down a scale of charges for landing goods at the pier, including 1d per cubic foot for musical instruments, 2/6d for turtles and £1 for a corpse.

Coincidentally, at the same time as Bruff was looking to build his pier, the Woolwich Steam Packet Company, which was successfully running steamers from London to Margate, was looking for an additional route North of the Thames to Ipswich with a stopover point along the way. Bruff arranged to meet their chairman, William Parry Jackson, actually on what was then the windswept and desolate beach at Clacton. We can only imagine how the conversation went and the picture Bruff painted of his new town, but whatever he said, it worked and the Woolwich Steam Packet Company agreed to finance the building of the pier in return for the exclusive right of their steamers to call there.

Eventually, the five-year deadline to build the pier was beaten by just two days, when on 18 July 1871, the first steamship ever to call at Clacton landed at the pier. Its name was SS Queen of the Orwell. And it is this date that is generally accepted as the founding of the new town of Clacton-on-Sea.

Clacton-on-Sea’s official opening came on 27 July when the Woolwich Steam Packet Company brought 300 guests on board the SS Albert Edward to take part in the opening celebrations. As the pier was only 300 yards long, it only allowed vessels to berth during high tide so the visitors had a limited stay. One couple, however, had wandered too far inland and when they returned to the beach they found that the Albert Edward had already cast off. A boat was found to take them out to the steamship, but, as they were boarding, the lady fell into the water, apparently much to the amusement of those on board ship. Perhaps it was a symbolic baptism for the new town.

Following the opening of the pier, Bruff set to work laying out his new town centre and building began in the area in and around Pier Avenue, including Marine Parade as far as Colne Road and Orwell Road to the East and Agate Road and Edith Road to the West. The first building to be built was the Royal Hotel, which opened in 1872. By 1880, Pier Avenue included many shops as well as a Public Hall, while along Marine Parade West some fine new villas had been built. Clacton-on-Sea had begun and has continued to expand ever since.