Captain William Henderson Meikleham was born in Paisley in 1839, was educated at the Bathson Academy, and brought up to the sea, serving in various ships. Mr. Meikleham arrived in Sydney in the S.S. “Queensland” in 1861. He joined the Intercolonial Royal Mail Company, which afterwards merged into the Panama page 368 Company, and visited New Zealand in the S.S. “Lord Ashley” as third officer at the time that vessel took up her running on the East Coast. In 1865 Captain Meikleham took charge of the S.S. “Airdale,” which he commanded till the breaking up of the company. Subsequently he went to England, and supervised the building of the S.S. “John Penn,” specially built for the West Coast trade for Capt. Johnson. On his way to England, whilst in Adelaide, he was persuaded to take command of the Government steamer, of which he had charge for three years, when he was transferred to the telegraph department, and took part in the overland expedition to Port Darwin. On the completion of that line, he joined the Black Diamond line of steamers, and two years afterwards returned to New Zealand in the “Dallam Towers” as coasting pilot. In 1874 Capt. Meikleham took command of the brig “Omaha,” which he ran to the Chatham Islands for about six years. Settling in Christchurch in 1864, he entered into business as an advertising agent, and has represented the “Press” since 1880. He was married in 1864 to a daughter of the late Mr. J. Johnston, one of the early Canterbury settlers who arrived in 1849, and has six daughters and one son.