MEIKLE, Robert (1817-1868) — London & Melbourne
Lithographer. For the Surveyor General’s Office, he lithographed Geological map from Melbourne to Western Port 1854; Township of Broadford Sunday Creek 1854; M. Nicholson, Township, suburban & country allotments at Framlingham at McWilliam’s Inn, Hopkins River 1855; Robert Mason, The town of Donnybrook parish of Kalkallo county of Bourke 1855; Robert M. Harvey, Country lots in the parish of Buninyong, county of Grant 1855; Electoral district of Ballarat 1855; Town and suburban lands at Gisborne in the county of Bourke 1856; The village of Frankston at Kananook Creek, Port Phillip Bay 1856; Country lands in the parishes of Goldie and Moranding eight to ten miles from Kilmore County of Dalhousie 1856; Township of Sale, Gippsland 1857; George Hastings, Village of Woodside, Bruthen Creek, Gipps Land 1857; W. A. Taylor, Country allotments in the parish of Moolort, in the county of Talbot 1857; Map to accompany report on the connection of Adelaide and Melbourne by electric telegraph 1857; for the Department of Lands and Survey, lithographed John Darbyshire, Township of Rutherglen, parish of Carlyle 1862, with Arthur James Stopps; Special lands, parish of Avoca 1863; Suburban lots, parish of Glenmona 1863, etc. He also compiled ‘The fencer’s manual’ 1859.
Born Robert Douglas Meikle at Paisley, Renfrewshire, 21 Jul 1817, the son of John Meikle, a merchant, and his wife Mary McTaggart. Already working as a lithographer, he married Emily Williams (1819?-1864) in London at St. Giles Cripplegate 1 May 1841. By 1851, he was resident in Islington, with his wife and a son, recorded as a lithographic draughtsman and employing two assistants. He arrived in Melbourne with his wife and son about 1853. He advertised quasi-anonymously in 1854 a private gymnasium teaching “feats with the sword, gymnastics, fencing and single stick play according to the system of Mr Arnold, Bond-street, London”. In 1857 he was described as lithographic draughtsman in the Public Lands Department, “a man of twenty-eight years’ experience in his branch” who had been unfairly dismissed for having punched John Trevor Jones. He later rejoined the department as a photo-lithographer early in 1863, but died and was buried 1 May 1868 of “chronic asthma and disease of the heart” aged fifty-one. His wife had pre-deceased him in 1864 and they are buried together in St. Kilda Cemetery.
3 Lawrence Lane, Cheapside, London — 1841-1842
145 Aldersgate Street, London — 1844-1850
20 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London — 1850
25 Thornhill Square, Islington — 1851
94 Bourke Street East, Melbourne — 1854-1856
Raglan Street, Melbourne — 1860
80 George Street East, Melbourne — 1861-1862
Simpson Street, Melbourne — 1864-1867
BBTI. Census 1851. Lemon. NLA. Tooley. Trove. Twyman.