Photo: Angela Conroy

In Preston Cemetery is a family headstone which reads:

The
family burial place of
John C. and Margaret Meikle
In
Loving memory of the above
John Cunningham Meikle
Who died May 18th 1916, aged 65 years.
Also of the above
Margaret Meikle
Who died November 2nd 1930, aged 76 years.
2nd Lieut. Robert Jardine Meikle
2nd The Durham Light Infantry
Who was killed in action at Ginchy, Somme
September 15th 1916, aged 23 years.
Lieut. John Meikle
Royal Canadian Dragoons who was killed in
action at Beaucourt-en-Santerre
August 8th 1918, aged 28 years.

According to the Whitley Bay Chronicle his address was "Gerahom", Marine Avenue, Monkseaton.

He was brother of Robert Jardine Meikle

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Born on 18th August 1890 to Scottish parents James Cunningham Meikle , a travelling draper and fishing boat owner, and his wife Margaret (nee Miller), aged seven months John was living at 10 Railway Terrace, North Shields with his parents and siblings, James aged 13, Jessie, Maggie, William and Archie. Four years later they were joined by younger brother Robert Jardine.

John was educated at the Presbyterian School in Howard Street, and by the time he was 21 he was an apprentice at a marine engineers in South Shields where he was lodging with the Tomlin family in Seafield Terrace.

Arriving in Canada in 1912 John made his way west to Saskatchewan where he applied for a Homestead Grant and settled to a farming life near Pennant, north west of Swift Current. John joined the local militia group, the 27th Light Horse Regiment, which trained regularly at Camp Sewell in Manitoba, and three weeks after war was declared the Regiment left home for training at Valcartier, Quebec. On 18th September 1914 John enlisted with the Royal Canadian Dragoons and became Private 887 in 'C' Squadron and gave as his next of kin his parents, now living in Monkseaton. At the end of the month the RCD sailed as part of a convoy on the SS Laurentic, ship number 127959, to Devonport, and on arrival on the 18th October were posted to Pond Farm on Salisbury Plain, where he was promoted to the rank of Corporal.

May 1915 saw the RCD, as part of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade, go to France but in an infantry role, and within two weeks 'C' Squadron was in the trenches at Festubert. January 1916 saw the RCD return to their cavalry role as part of the 2nd Indian Cavalry Division, and here in February Corporal Meikle was promoted Sergeant. For a week at the beginning of May he attended an instructional course on the Hotchkiss gun, sniping and bombing at the Divisional School at Tramecourt Chateau west of Arras. Granted leave at the end of the month, he was unable to reach home in time for his father’s funeral, and he was on duty with the RCD when he would have heard of the death of his youngest brother Robert, fighting with the DLI, in September.

In March 1917 Sergeant Meikle returned to England for officer’s training at Shorncliffe and on 1st June he was commissioned as a Lieutenant and posted to 'A' Squadron Canadian Reserve Cavalry Regiment to await posting. A year later, in April 1918, he joined the RCD at Conchy, where he helped to train new recruits who according to the War Dairy 'have had no cavalry training and have very little knowledge of riding'.

On 8th August 1918 the first day of the Last One Hundred Days campaign, the RCD were ordered to advance rapidly to Beaucourt-en-Santerre near Amiens. According to the war diary, as the dragoons gained Beaucourt, their left flank was exposed, allowing enemy machine guns to fire on them from the woods. Lieutenant Meikle was one of nine men killed in that attack. The war diary also recorded 125 horse casualties. His body was recovered, and buried in a registered grave in an orchard near the town; unfortunately, when the battlefield was later cleared, either the grave could not be located, or his remains could not be positively identified.

John Meikle is remembered in North Shields on N34.36 and N34.68, and in Whitley Bay on W84.01, W84.30 page 21 and W84.31.

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual Memorial
The CWGC entry for Lieutenant Meikle