A Scottish professional soldier who served in Ulster from 1610-3 and the Netherlands from 1613-22. He was granted lands in County Fermanagh as a result of his Irish service and was knighted by King James I in 1622. Meldrum also profited from a controversial monopoly on several lighthouses that entitled him to levy a penny per ton of cargo carried by ships that passed them. In 1627, he took part in the Duke of Buckingham's ill-fated expedition to La Rochelle then spent several years as a colonel in the Swedish army under Gustavus Aldolphus. In June 1642, Meldrum took service with Parliament. He wrote an open letter explaining that he was abandoning King Charles despite thirty-six years service to him and his father because of the misguided policies of the King's advisers. He also complained that his loyal service had left him with debts amounting to £3,000.
In one of the earliest actions of the First Civil War, Meldrum secured the port of Hull for Parliament in July 1642 and drove away the besieging Royalist army. He then helped Sir William Waller to capture Portsmouth in September 1642 and commanded an infantry brigade on the Parliamentarian right wing at the battle of Edgehill in October. In June 1643, Parliament sent Meldrum to Nottingham to arrest Captain Hotham for treachery. The following month, he marched with troops from Nottingham to support Colonel Cromwell's cavalry in Lincolnshire, then took command at the operations around Gainsborough. Meldrum returned to Hull in October 1643, where he was in overall command of the attack that drove away the Royalist besiegers a second time. In March 1644, Meldrum and Lord Willoughby besieged the great Royalist stronghold of Newark, only to be surprised and defeated by Prince Rupert's relief force in one of the Prince's most brilliant campaigns.
Meldrum remained active in northern England, assisting the Fairfaxes at the capture of Selby in April 1644, co-operating with Sir William Brereton to capture Montgomery Castle in September 1644 and recapturing Liverpool for Parliament in November 1644. Meldrum spared the lives of soldiers captured at Liverpool who had come over from Ireland despite Parliament's order that all such troops were to be executed without mercy. In February 1645, he took command at the siege of Scarborough Castle. Meldrum survived a fall down a 200-foot cliff when his cloak acted as a parachute, but was later killed leading an assault on the castle on 11 May 1645.
References:
Charles Carlton, Sir John Meldrum, Oxford DNB, 2004.