Andrew Meikle was a Scotsman of the late 18th and early 19th century. He is credited for inventing the drum-style threshing machine that could be operated with wind power, horse power, and eventually by steam power.

• Early years

  Andrew Meikle was born in 1719 in Houston Mill in eastern Scotland in the UK. After inheriting his father’s mill, Meikle invented a threshing machine that greatly increased the production efficiency of grain.

• The Threshers

  Threshers are machines that remove the outer husks from grains such as wheat. Before the threshing machine, separating the grain from the chaff was a labor intensive process. The thresher was a very important development in the huge changes in British agriculture in the late 18thcentury. Meikle’s first two threshers were not successful. But eventually he designed a machine based on a drum in which flax fibers were beaten to separate the husks.