Good start to history of this interesting survivor in British Mining Engineering. George Blake Walker possibly worthy of a wiki page in his own right. MECO set up to import and manufacture German rescue apparatus - Shamrock is named after the Shamrock collieries run by the well-known German engineer Georg Albrecht Meyer and visited by British Engineers in the 1890s. I believe the Shamrock apparatus was first imported and sold in the UK by Clarke, Steavenson and Co. Ltd (effectively run by Blake Walker's brothers-in-law), until around the death of T.B.A. Clarke in 1909 when the importance of new capital to extend work on rock drills and to focus on rescue work meant that MECO took this on. The first design expert at MECO was from the German company wit whom Meco had arranged to work - the Maschinenfabrik 'Westfalia' Aktiengesellschaft - and Mr Charles Christiansen, a mechanical engineer who had previously worked on mining machinery at Gelsenkirchen in Germany. Later, Tage Georg Nyborg, a Danish electrical engineer and keen aeronautical designer, amongst other accomplishments (born c.1872?) worked on many projects for the company.
Trials of rescue apparatus took place throughout the 1900s, for example in 1908, at the opening of Howe Bridge (Atherton, Lancs) rescue station. The Sheffield aspect of the company's history tends to be forgotten as the commercial success and world-wide manufacturing branding really only came to pass from the benefits of the site and facilities afforded at Worcester under the successful management of the Higgins family. Important to realise the small origins and close links between science and industry in Sheffield, including later Safety in Mines Research that was carried out in connection with Sheffield University.Bookish wonder 21:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC)