burgh, 1794, p. 147). He was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates on 31 Jan. 1719, but the books contain no particulars of his parentage. He probably belonged to the Menzies of Culter-Allers, Lanarkshire (cf. Irving, Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, iii. 145). He was the first to suggest thrashing grain by a machine, and his idea was to imitate the action of the ordinary flail. A number of flails were attached to a horizontal axis, which was moved rapidly to and fro through half a revolution, the grain to be thrashed being placed on either side. He took out a patent for his invention in 1734 (No. 544), and he made a machine, which he brought under the notice of the Society of Improvers in Agriculture, who seemed inclined to think well of it. It is described in the ‘Transactions’ of that body (Edinburgh, 1743, p. 276), and the report is alluded to in the ‘Farmers' Magazine,’ Edinburgh, 1816, xvii. 401. It was not a practical success. Menzies also took out a patent in 1750 (No. 653) for a machine for conveying coal from the face of the working to the bottom of the shaft, and in 1761 he obtained another patent (No. 762) for working and draining coal mines. The specifications of these two patents are of very great length, and the machinery is exceedingly complicated. According to Curr's ‘Coal Viewer's Companion,’ 1797, pp. 33, 35, Menzies's machinery came into use, in part at all events, but the method of raising coals up the shaft was only applicable where a stream of water with a fall of about half the depth of the pit was available. It seems also to have been used at Chatershaugh colliery, on the Wear, in 1753 (cf. Galloway, Coal Mining, p. 112), and it is briefly alluded to by R. Bald in his ‘Coal Trade of Scotland,’ p. 90.
Menzies died at Edinburgh 13 Dec. 1766.
[Scots Magazine, 1766, p. 671; see art. Andrew Meikle.]
MEOPHAM or MEPEHAM, SIMON (d. 1333), archbishop of Canterbury, was a native of Kent (Murimuth, p. 57), and was probably born at the village of Meopham in that county, seven miles west by south of Rochester, from which he derived his name, and where he certainly possessed property. The Meophams seem to have been a numerous clan, or at least many persons entered the ecclesiastical state who took their names from the village. There was Master Richard Meopham, who was archdeacon of Oxford in 1263 and dean of Lincoln in 1273, who spoke up for the rights of the English church at the council of Lyons in 1274, and incurred the disfavour of Pope Gregory X by his boldness (Hemingburgh, ii. 3–4). No less than five Meophams, Edmund, Roger, John, Thomas, and William, were ordained by Archbishop Peckham (Peckham, Letters, iii. 1031–54). One of these, Edmund, was ordained in 1286 sub-deacon on the title of rector of Tunstall, near Sittingbourne, which was in later times the title of Simon to holy orders. He may probably be identical with Edmund, brother of Simon, though this would make him to have attained a very considerable age for the fourteenth century. Simon had, besides Edmund, another brother, named Thomas, who became a friar, and apparently a sister named Joan, the wife of John de la Dene, whose family was of sufficient standing to give its name to the chapel of St. James de la Dene in Meopham parish church. On 25 March 1327 Edmund and Simon Meopham, along with John de la Dene, obtained, on paying a fine of five marks, a license for alienation in mortmain of a messuage, two mills, land and rents in the parishes of East Malling, Northfleet, Meopham, and Hoo (all in Kent), and Barling (Essex), for a chaplain to celebrate divine service daily in the chapel of St. James de la Dene in Meopham Church for the souls of the founders, Joan de la Dene, their parents, kinsfolk, and benefactors (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1327–30, p. 62).
Simon Meopham duly proceeded to Oxford, where he is one of the large number of famous men who have been claimed, on no precise documentary evidence, as fellows of Merton College (Brodrick, Hist. of Merton Coll. pp. 209–10, Oxf. Hist. Soc.; Wood, Colleges and Halls, p. 14, ed. Gutch, who both reject the story). In due course he proceeded doctor or master of divinity. He was ordained priest by Archbishop Winchelsea, who conferred on him that same rectory of Tunstall which had some years before been held by Edmund Meopham, and which Simon continued to hold until his election to the archbishopric (Wilkins, ii. 544). He was made prebendary of Llandaff in 1295. He was also a canon of Chichester (Murimuth, p. 57; Cal. Pat. Rolls, p. 198).
Meopham is described as a man poor in worldly circumstances but rich in virtues (Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 540). He took no great part in public affairs, and attained no very distinguished position as a churchman or scholar. Though he numbered him among the mediæval lists of writers, Tanner could not find that he had composed any literary works (see Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 522). The death of Archbishop Walter Reynolds, on 16 Nov. 1327, opened up to him, however, the unexpected prospect of succession to the
