Patrick Meik

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Patrick Meik (born? - died 1910) was an English engineer and part of a minor engineering dynasty. His father Thomas Meik was also an engineer, as was Patrick's brother Charles Meik.

Both boys were born in Crowtree Road, Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland.

Patrick went to work for his father and worked on Meik's harbours at Burntisland and Bo'ness on the river Forth in Scotland before being asked by Sir Benjamin Baker to be resident engineer (1882-1885) on the foundations and piers of the Forth Bridge (designed by Baker and Sir John Fowler). After this project, he moved to London to set up his own engineering practice.

In 1894, he was joined by his brother Charles and together they worked on a major commission to construct docks and a railway at Port Talbot, followed by an equally ambitious scheme to expand the port of Seaham, officially opened in 1905. The Meiks' expertise saw port and railway designs developed in many parts of the British Empire, including Christmas Island, India, Burma (the Rangoon River training works - where Patrick worked with Sir George Buchanan) and Mozambique.

In the 1900s, their firm was commissioned to design the Kinlochleven hydroelectric scheme in the Scottish Highlands. William Halcrow, later Sir Willam Halcrow, joined the company and took up the position of assistant resident engineer at the Kinlochleven project. The Meik brothers' engineering practice was later renamed CS Meik and Halcrow and today remains one of the world's foremost engineering consultancies, the Halcrow Group.

Patrick Meik died in 1910, mourned as "an able and accomplished engineer: whose "kindness of heart and social qualities endeared him to a large circle of friends".