Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Meikle, Andrew
MEIKLE, ANDREW (1719–1811), millwright and inventor of the thrashing-machine, born in 1719, was son of James Meikle, who went to Holland on behalf of Andrew Fletcher of Salton to gain a knowledge of the art of making pot barley [see Fletcher, Andrew, 1655–1716]. Andrew established himself as a millwright at Houston Mill, near Dunbar, and in 1768, in conjunction with Robert Mackell, obtained a patent (No. 896) for a machine for dressing grain.
Meikle's chief invention was the well-known drum thrashing-machine, which cannot be dated earlier than 1784. Six years before that date he had, however, constructed a completely different thrashing-machine, which seems to have been identical with one patented in 1734 by Michael Menzies [q. v.] A trial of Meikle's first machine took place in February 1778 before a number of farmers in the neighbourhood, who appended their names to a report printed in Wight's ‘Present State of Agriculture in Scotland,’ ii. 491. Among them was George Rennie of Phantassie, East Lothian, father of John Rennie [q. v.], the engineer, who served an apprenticeship to Meikle. The machine was not successful, and nothing more is heard of it.
About 1784 Francis Kinloch, a gentleman farmer of Gilmerton, East Lothian, while travelling in Northumberland, saw a thrashing-machine at Wark, and on returning home he caused a model to be made. After repeated trials, all of which were unsuccessful, it was sent in 1784 to Meikle's shop, where it was tried at a high velocity and again failed, the machine being destroyed in the experiment. Meikle saw where the fault lay, and conceived the idea of a drum strong enough to run at a great speed, armed with fixed scutchers or beaters, which should beat and not rub out the grain, as the previous machines had done. Kinloch also used a drum, but made in a different way, and a controversy respecting Meikle's indebtedness to Kinloch followed (cf. Farmers' Magazine, Edinburgh, December 1811, p. 483; John Shirreff, Reply to an Address to the Public … on … the Thrashing-Machine). It has also been alleged that Meikle only adapted the well-known flax-scutching mill for the purpose of thrashing grain, and it is not unimportant to point out that the words ‘scutchers’ and ‘scutching’ are used throughout his specification. J. A. Ransome (Implements of Agriculture, p. 146) gives a series of diagrams showing the exact form of the ‘beaters,’ as they are now called, upon which the efficiency of Meikle's machine depends.
Meikle communicated his ideas to his second son, George, then residing at Alloa, who in February 1786 completed a machine for Mr. Stein, a large distiller and farmer at Kilbeggie, Clackmannanshire. In the following year Andrew Meikle made a machine to be worked by horses for George Rennie. He took out a patent for the invention in 1788 (No. 1645), but it was for England only, no application being made for a Scottish patent, because he had destroyed his right to a valid patent for Scotland by publicly using his invention before making his application. He seems to have commenced the manufacture of thrashing-machines as a business in 1789 (see his advertisement in the Scots Magazine for May 1789, p. 211). ‘In all its essential parts, and in the principle of its construction, it remains as it came from the hands of its inventor’ (Low, Elements of Practical Agriculture, 4th edition, p. 188).
A humorous poem in the form of a dialogue between the flail and the thrashing-machine was written and circulated about 1787. The following is a specimen:—
When round my axletree I reel,
Wi' men, wind, nout, or water-wheel,
In twenty minutes, or I'm a deil,
I'll clean mair strae
Than you, if ye will thrash it weel,
In a hail day.
‘Nout’ is ‘neat,’ or cattle. The entire poem is printed in the ‘Farmers' Magazine,’ 1810, xi. 53.
He does not seem to have derived much pecuniary benefit from his invention. In 1809 a subscription for his relief was started by Sir John Sinclair and others, and upwards of 1,500l. was raised. A list of the subscriptions is given in the ‘Farmers' Magazine’ for December 1810, pp. 465, 520, and it appears that only 85l. was given in England, of which 21l. was subscribed by two of his friends, James Watt and John Rennie.
Meikle was also the inventor of a method of rapidly furling the sails of windmills to prevent damage by sudden squalls (see Brown, General View of the Agriculture of York, 1799, p. 61). In Smeaton's ‘Reports’ (ii. 421) there is a reference to Meikle's proposals for improving the mills at Dalry, near Edinburgh.
He died at Houston Mill on 27 Nov. 1811, aged 92, and was buried in the churchyard at Prestonkirk, near Dunbar, where there is a tombstone to his memory. A copy of the inscription is given by Smiles (Scots Magazine, January 1812, p. 79; Farmers' Magazine, 1811, xii. 566).
George Meikle (d. 1811), son of Andrew, was also a millwright. Besides assisting his father in working out the details of the thrashing-machine he invented a water-raising wheel, which was used in draining the moss of Kincardine in 1787, being adopted in preference to Whitworth's pumping-machine (Farmers' Magazine, 1817, xviii. 265). He died on 29 Nov. 1811 (Scots Magazine, January 1812, p. 79; Farmers' Magazine, 1811, xii. 566).
[Authorities cited; Smiles's Lives of the Engineers, ‘Rennie and Smeaton,’ ed. 1874, p. 199; Sir John Sinclair's General Report on the Agriculture of Scotland, 1814, i. 228, 400; Correspondence of Sir John Sinclair, i. 414; R. Somerville's Agriculture of East Lothian, 1813, p. 294; John Bailey and George Culley's Agriculture of Northumberland, 1794, p. 48; Notes on the History of the Thrashing Machine in Farmers' Magazine (Edinburgh), iii. 428, iv. 128.]