Mr Meek

James McKain Archibald Job Meek was an Englishman, born near the seaport of Great Yarmouth on 15 June 1815. We know little of his childhood, but he loved the sea, and by the time he reached Sydney in January 1838, aged twenty-two, he had considerable seafaring experience.

He made a life in the new colony, married and had four children, all of whom survived and produced families of their own. Gold lured Meek to Ballarat in late December 1851 and his sketches from that time are among the earliest European records of the goldfields. He did well as a miner, and perhaps even better from his sly grog outlet.

Meek had a boom and bust career, and moved his family around Victoria and New Zealand as he tried all manner of commercial ventures. He was a mariner, miner, explorer, entrepreneur, graphic artist, writer, poet, and all-round colonial eccentric.

Audiences in his day much admired his large-scale graphic art works in high Victorian style – they are astonishing in their complexity of design and density of information. Meek died near Warrnambool at his daughter’s home on 9 June 1899, a week before his eighty-fourth birthday.