David Meikleham: Shoemaker, A founding father…and kidnapper of The Duke!…
David Meikleham was born in Rothesay in 1852. He was an anomaly among the Celtic founding fathers, in that he was born into a Catholic family without any Irish ancestry. Almost every other member of Celtic’s first committee identified as Irish, whether through being born there, or as a descendant of those who had been.
Before his 10th birthday, David and his family had moved to Glasgow, settling on Broad Street in the Calton. At the age of 19, he moved with his parents to Hunter Street, along the road from an old Army barracks in the Gallowgate.
David’s father, William, opened a shoe repair shop nearby, and David began working in it as a shoemaker. This would have brought him into contact with another future founding father of Celtic, John O’Hara, who was the leader of the Shoemaker’s Union.
In his personal life, David married Robina McLaughlin at St Alphonsus Catholic Church in 1873. The couple had 13 children (six boys and seven girls), and lived together on Shuttle Street, which was located just off High Street in Glasgow’s city centre.
David soon decided to go it alone in the business world, building up his own shoemaker’s shop to the point whereby he employed seven members of staff, in 1881. Five years later, he took his large family back to the Calton, purchasing a house on William Street (now Templeton Street) and integrating into the local parish where he had married.
The parish was dominated by Irish people and their descendant community, however, the Catholic Church in Scotland had pushed for the integration of the small number of Scottish Catholics and welcomed them to join their congregations to avoid the total Gaelicisation of the church. Meikleham did just that, becoming popular in the community and enlisting as a member of the local Catholic Union in 1887. David’s role with the Union increased quickly, as he was tasked with representing St Alphonsus parish on the Central Committee of the organisation.
Aside of joining the Union, he also became a member of the Caledonian Catholic Association in Glasgow. David was somewhat of an enigma, in that he was a Catholic, solely proud of his native Caledonia and a middle-class individual, yet he had gladly worked with many Irishmen through his different memberships and parish involvements.
On the flip side, Meikleham was a longstanding member of Queen’s Park FC, the establishment team of the day. The Spiders were not fond of signing Catholic players – indeed, they were largely anti-Irish and very much middle-class. It is somewhat of an oxymoron that David would maintain links with that club for so long, whilst simultaneously supporting so many Catholic causes. Nevertheless, Queen’s Park being one of the most successful teams in world football at the time, he certainly had the sporting understanding to go with his business status and prestigious aura.
Boasting several qualities that would be useful to Celtic, especially being a Scottish middle-class individual with sympathy for the Catholic plight in Glasgow, David Meikleham joined the Celtic project at a very early stage. He was involved in the preliminary meetings to discuss the establishment of the club and served as a member of the club’s first committee.
His role became more important in 1892, when Celtic moved to their new stadium. Meikleham was named as one of four leaseholders and remained such until the landlord was convinced to sell the site to Celtic on a permanent basis in 1897. He was also part of the group that went to Nottingham to retrieve Neil McCallum and Sandy McMahon, who were taken south by English agents without the offer of compensation being made to Celtic. Along with Meikleham, the group consisted of John Glass, James Curtis and Sandy McMahon’s brother!
McCallum was retrieved easily, however, Nottingham Forest kept McMahon on the move. Fortunately, David Meikleham found him on a random street and grabbed hold of him, before jostling him into a taxi! Cue a Wild West-style chase as the pair made way for the local train station, with Forest officials in pursuit.
Unfortunately for the English club, McMahon was taken to Manchester, where the rest of the Celtic delegation met him. He was then placed on an additional train, which arrived in Glasgow without detection. This was Meikleham’s greatest-ever contribution to Celtic, as in those pre-professional days, the clubs did not get transfer fees for the loss of star players.
The result of losing Sandy McMahon permanently would have been damaging to Celtic’s success, and would have depleted the attendances at matches. Thanks to Meikleham’s eagle eyes, the ‘Duke’ McMahon would go on to play for Celtic on over 217 occasions, becoming one of the early legendary figures in the club’s history.
Liam Kelly
*An extract from Liam Kelly’s section of Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys, covering Celtic’s Founding Fathers. Matt Corr writes about Celtic’s First Season and club historian David Potter tells numerous brilliant stories about the early Celtic Stars, including the aforementioned Sandy McMahon who we will feature this evening on The Celtic Star.
There have been numerous extracts from this wonderful new book available on The Celtic Star. Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys is out now.
