Meehan (1774-1826) was a middle-class Catholic Irishman whose flirtation with the Society of United Irishmen in 1796-8 led to his conviction as a member of a proscribed organisation, although he did not take part in the actual uprising (the 'Irish Rebellion') of 1798. As a result, the 25-year-old school teacher and surveyor arrived in Sydney in February 1800 on the convict ship "Friendship" to serve a life sentence. Because of his valuable experience as a surveyor in Ireland, Meehan was soon assigned to the Surveyor-General of the colony, at first Augustus Alt, but after 1801, Charles Grimes. Meehan was the only one of four assistant surveyors with qualifications, so from the start his competence and diligence earned him uncommon freedoms and by 1803 he had done survey work not only on Sydney's Cumberland Plain but as far afield as the Hunter, Port Phillip and Van Diemen's Land. In 1805 he received a conditional pardon and was acting as chief surveyor of NSW in Grimes' absence. Meehan had, while still a convict, received a land grant of 100 acres in the Field of Mars in 1803.