Patrick Walter Meik (1851 - 12 July 1910) [1] was an English civil engineer and part of a minor engineering dynasty. His father Thomas Meik was also an engineer, as was his younger brother Charles Meik.
Both boys were born in Crowtree Road, Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland. Meik was educated at King’s College School, London, and at the University of Edinburgh, after which he joined his father's practice for three years' pupillage from 1868 to 1871. [1] He then worked for John Aird & Co., employed on projects including the East London Waterworks at Sunbury and the Imperial Gasworks at Bromley.
In 1873, Meik went to work for his father and worked on Meik's harbours at Burntisland (where he was resident engineer on the West Dock) and at 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 and set up an office for his father's engineering practice, now known as Thomas Meik and Sons. [1] He worked on a rail project at Lee-on-the-Solent during this time. [2]
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, [3] and the King’s Dock at Swansea, which was opened in 1909. The Meiks' expertise saw port and railway designs developed in many parts of the British Empire, including Christmas Island, India, Singapore, Burma (the Rangoon River training works – where Patrick worked with Sir George Buchanan) [1] and Mozambique.
In the 1900s, their firm was commissioned to design the Kinlochleven hydroelectric scheme in the Scottish Highlands. [1] William 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 became one of the world's foremost engineering consultancies, the Halcrow Group (in 2005, the Edinburgh office of the Halcrow group bought Forth Bridge drawings originally created by Patrick Meik over 120 years earlier). [4] [5]
Patrick Meik died in London in 1910, mourned as "an able and accomplished engineer: whose kindness of heart and social qualities endeared him to a large circle of friends". [1]
Sir Benjamin Baker was an eminent English civil engineer who worked in mid to late Victorian era. He helped develop the early underground railways in London with Sir John Fowler, but he is best known for his work on the Forth Bridge. He made many other notable contributions to civil engineering, including his work as an expert witness at the public inquiry into the Tay Rail Bridge disaster. Later, he helped design and build the first Aswan dam.
Sir Thomas Bouch was a British railway engineer. He was born in Thursby, near Carlisle, Cumberland, and lived in Edinburgh. As manager of the Edinburgh and Northern Railway he introduced the first roll-on/roll-off train ferry service in the world. Subsequently as a consulting engineer, he helped develop the caisson and popularised the use of lattice girders in railway bridges. He was knighted after the successful completion of the first Tay Railway Bridge, but his reputation was destroyed by the subsequent Tay Bridge Disaster, in which 75 people are believed to have died as a result of defects in design, construction and maintenance, for all of which Bouch was held responsible. He died within 18 months of being knighted.
John Rennie FRSE FRS was a Scottish civil engineer who designed many bridges, canals, docks and warehouses, and a pioneer in the use of structural cast-iron.
Sir Alexander Richardson Binnie was a British civil engineer responsible for several major engineering projects, including several associated with crossings of the River Thames in London.
Charles Scott Meik was an English civil and mechanical engineer, and part of a minor engineering dynasty. His father Thomas Meik was also a civil engineer, as was Charles' brother Patrick Meik; collectively, they established a company which became one of the UK's major engineering consultancies.
The Blackwater Reservoir is a reservoir created behind a dam in the mountains above Kinlochleven, Lochaber, Highland, Scotland. At over 914 m long, the dam is the longest in the Highlands.
Thomas Meik was a 19th-century Scottish engineer.
Sir George Cunningham Buchanan was a British civil engineer particularly associated with harbour works in Burma, Iraq and Bombay, during the early years of the 20th century.
William Henry Barlow FRS FRSE FICE MIMechE was an English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with railway engineering projects. Barlow was involved in many engineering enterprises. He was engineer for the Midland Railway on its London extension and designed the company's London terminus at St Pancras.
Sir William Halcrow was one of the most notable English civil engineers of the 20th century, particularly renowned for his expertise in the design of tunnels and for projects during the Second World War.
Sir John Rennie FRSA was the second son of engineer John Rennie the Elder, and brother of George Rennie.
Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet, KCMG, LLD, FRSE was an English civil engineer specialising in the construction of railways and railway infrastructure. In the 1850s and 1860s, he was engineer for the world's first underground railway, London's Metropolitan Railway, built by the "cut-and-cover" method under city streets. In the 1880s, he was chief engineer for the Forth Bridge, which opened in 1890. Fowler's was a long and eminent career, spanning most of the 19th century's railway expansion, and he was engineer, adviser or consultant to many British and foreign railway companies and governments. He was the youngest president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, between 1865 and 1867, and his major works represent a lasting legacy of Victorian engineering.
Brigadier-General Sir Alexander Gibb was a Scottish civil engineer. After serving as Civil Engineer-in-Chief to the Admiralty and Director-General of Civil Engineering at the Ministry of Transport, he established the engineering consultancy firm Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners.
James Abernethy FRSE was a Scottish civil engineer.
Halcrow Group Limited was a multinational engineering consultancy company, based in the United Kingdom
Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice CMG was an Irish civil engineer. He was apprenticed to Benjamin Baker and worked with him on the Forth Railway Bridge before going to Egypt to build the Aswan Dam for which he was appointed both a member of the Ottoman Order of the Mejidiye and a companion of the British Order of St Michael and St George. Following this Fitzmaurice was Chief Engineer to the London County Council and was responsible for the Blackwall, Rotherhithe and Woolwich tunnels. In later life his consultancy advised on docks and harbours across the British Commonwealth as well as the Sennar Dam in Sudan and he was recognised with the prestigious honour of the presidency of the Institution of Civil Engineers for the 1916-17 session.
Sir Alan Marshall Muir Wood was a British civil engineer.
The Lochaber hydroelectric scheme is a hydroelectric power generation project constructed in the Lochaber area of the western Scottish Highlands after the First World War. Like its predecessor at Kinlochleven, it was intended to provide electricity for aluminium production, this time at Fort William, a little further north. It is still in operation.
John Gibb (1776–1850) was a Scottish civil engineer and contractor whose work included the construction of harbours, bridges, roads, lighthouses, and railways in the United Kingdom, primarily in Scotland. He was a close associate of Thomas Telford, who employed him on many of his civil engineering projects during the first half of the 19th century.
Asa Binns was a British mechanical and civil engineer. He trained with hydraulic pump and engine makers before becoming a draughtsman. Binns worked for a period at HMS Chatham Dockyard and rose to become head of their civil engineering works. He later worked on the construction of several major docks in London, including for the Port of London Authority. Binns served as president of the Institution of Engineers-in-Charge (1936–37) and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (1940). He was elected president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1946 but died before he could take office.