Early Life
Born on May 23, 1812, at No.1 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, second son of the Rev. Thomas Meredith and his wife Elizabeth Maria Graves (1792–1855), the eldest daughter of the Very Rev. Richard Graves, Dean of Ardagh. He was named for his father’s first cousin, William Collis (1788–1866) J.P., of Tieraclea House, High Sheriff of Kerry, a first cousin of Lord Monteagle. Meredith was a nephew of Robert James Graves and a brother of Edmund Allen Meredith. His first cousins included John Walsingham Cooke Meredith, Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell, John Dawson Mayne, Francis Brinkley, Major-General Arthur Robert MacDonnell and Sir James Creed Meredith.
A year after Meredith was born his family moved up to Ardtrea, near Cookstown, County Tyrone, his father having resigned his fellowship in Dublin to take up the position of Rector there. In 1819, Meredith's father died of 'a sudden and awful visitation' at his home while attempting to shoot a ghost with a silver bullet. His mother returned to Harcourt Street, Dublin, and he joined his Meredith and Redmond cousins at Dr Behan's school in County Wexford. Five years later, against her parents wishes, Meredith's mother re-married her mother's cousin, James Edmund Burton (1776–1850), a first cousin of Henry Pearce Driscoll and an uncle of Sir Richard Francis Burton and Lady Stisted. Formerly a magistrate at Tuam, Meredith's step-father had "wasted every farthing of his Irish property" and so attracted by the land grants he took the position of the Church of England's first missionary to Terrebonne, Quebec.
In the summer of 1824, Meredith arrived at 'Burtonville', his stepfather's house and farm outside Rawdon, then a four day journey north of Montreal. He was tutored there by Burton himself or by whatever tutor his stepfather could procure, who were few and far between. In 1828, William's mother, "a lady of much culture and refinement, and possessed also of great energy and force of character", sent him back to Ireland to complete his studies at Trinity College, Dublin.
In 1831, a year before his mother and stepfather returned permanently to Cloyne, Co. Cork, he chose to return to Montreal to commence his legal studies there. He articled under The Hon. Clement-Charles Sabrevois de Bleury and then James Charles Grant, QC, before being called to the Bar of Lower Canada in 1836.
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