William Meikle Popular Books
William Meikle Biography & Facts
Andrew Meikle (5 May 1719 – 27 November 1811) was a Scottish mechanical engineer credited with inventing the threshing machine, a device used to remove the outer husks from grains of wheat. He also had a hand in assisting Firbeck in the invention of the Rotherham Plough. This was regarded as one of the key developments of the British Agricultural Revolution in the late 18th century. The invention was made around 1786, although some say he only improved on an earlier design by a Scottish farmer named Leckie. Michael Stirling is said to have invented a rotary threshing machine in 1758 which for forty years was used to process all the corn on his farm at Gateside, no published works have yet been found but his son William made a sworn statement to his minister to this fact, he also gave him the details of his father's death in 1796. Earlier (c.1772), he also invented windmill "spring sails", which replaced the simple canvas designs previously used with sails made from a series of shutters that could be operated by levers, allowing windmill sails to be quickly and safely controlled in the event of a storm. Meikle worked as a millwright at Houston Mill in East Linton, East Lothian, and inspired John Rennie to become a noted civil engineer. He died at Houston Mill and is buried in East Lothian's Prestonkirk Parish Church kirkyard, close to Rennie's father, George Rennie, who farmed the nearby Phantassie estate by the River Tyne. In 2011 he was one of seven inaugural inductees to the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame. Ascertaining that Andrew Meikle was in poverty, Sir John Sinclair raised for him by subscription the sum of £1, which was invested so as to place the aged mechanic in circumstances of comfort. Meikle died in 1811, and his remains were interred in the parish churchyard of Prestonkirk, Haddingtonshire. At his grave has been raised a handsome tombstone, with the following legend:—"Beneath this stone are deposited the mortal remains of the late Andrew Meikle, civil engineer at Houston Mill, who died in the year 1811, aged 92 years. Descended from a race of ingenious mechanics, to whom the country for ages had been greatly indebted, he steadily followed the example of his ancestors, and by inventing and bringing to perfection a machine for separating corn from the straw (constructed upon the principles of velocity, and furnished with fixed beaters or skutchers), rendered to the agriculturists of Great Britain, and of other nations, a more beneficial service than any hitherto recorded in the annals of ancient or modern science." [from volume 3 of Social Life in Scotland by Rev. Charles Rogers] See also List of places in East Lothian Phantassie Doocot References External links Gazetteer for Scotland entry for Andrew Meikle. Discover the William Meikle popular books. Find the top 100 most popular William Meikle books.
Best Seller William Meikle Books of 2024
-
Variations on a Theme
William MeikleIf you're looking for a longer taster of my work, this is more of who I am.These twelve short stories, eight of them previously published in magazines or anthologies, contain magic...
-
The Persistence Of Memory
William MeikleThe only thing Betty has left of her deceased husband is the old piano. It's not enough.But music has its ways, and when the piano starts to play on its own in an empty room, old m...
-
Green Grow The Rashes And Other Stories
William MeikleIf you're looking for a taster of William Meikle's work, this is who he is.These seven short stories, all previously published in magazines or anthologies, contain magic, monsters,...
-
Totems
William MeikleIt is a simple enough concept.There are houses like this all over the world. Most people only know of them from whispered stories over campfires; tall tales told to scare the unwar...
-
The Burdens
William MeikleThere are towers, there in the dark under the yellow moons. Huge towers, where all your burdens are held, just waiting for you to be ready to face them.When you wake up somewhere, ...
-
Augustus Seton Collected Chronicles
William MeikleAUGUSTUS SETON lives in Stirling in the late 16th C and is, usually, in the service of the King, fighting the good fight against the dark things of the world in between drinking an...
-
When The Stars Are Right
William MeikleA new form of propulsion has the military excited. But why do they need an expert in ritual magic on board their new flagship spacecraft? And why do they need an exorcist? It is so...
-
Faster Than the Hound
William MeikleJohn Seton is a grifter, an expat Scots kid working pennyante magic tricks on the streets of L.A. But John has a secret. In his family, sometimes, the magic is real. And sometimes,...
-
After Death
William MeikleA collection of tales of what comes after death.In here you'll find ghosts and zombies, heaven and hell, monsters both human and supernatural, a Great Detective, a couple of fiddle...
-
Sigils
William MeikleIt is a simple enough concept.There are houses like this all over the world. Most people only know of them from whispered stories over campfires; tall tales told to scare the unwar...
-
The Haunting of Esther Cox
William MeikleAn eChapbook:Between 1878 and 1879 the small town of Amherst in Nova Scotia sees of one of the strangest cases of poltergeist activity in history.A local girl, Esther Cox becomes t...