In the late nineteenth century three brothers, John, Stewart and Thomas Meikle emigrated from Scotland to Southern Africa. In 1892 the brothers opened a successful trading business in Fort Victoria which spread across all the major centres such as Bulawayo, Umtali (now Mutare) and Salisbury (now Harare) in Rhodesia (Now Zimbabwe). In 1915 Thomas opened a hotel in  present-day Harare. The Meikles brand has continued to grow over the last 100 years and is now very prominent in the hotel, retail, supermarket chain, agriculture and security services industries.