Thomas Meik

Educated at the High School and University of Edinburgh, Thomas Meik worked for two years with a firm of millwrights named Moodie and was then apprenticed to John Steedman, an engineer and contractor who was working in Glasgow on the Hutcheson Bridge (designed by Robert Stevenson, grandfather of author Robert Louis Stevenson).

In 1845, at the age of 33, Meik was appointed engineer to the River Wear Commission (responsible for maritime works around Sunderland).

[1] Commissions included a rail freight link, the Hylton, Southwick and Monkwearmouth Railway, transporting coal from collieries sited along the line to the nearby port at Sunderland.

Work included the Scottish ports of Ayr, Burntisland and Bo'ness, and the firm acted as consulting engineers to the new dock at Silloth for the North British Railway.

[2] He retired in 1888 and died at his home in Newbattle Terrace in Edinburgh in 1896 aged 84, leaving his business in the hands of his sons, Patrick and Charles.