Career
During his tenure at McGill University he joined the civil service and moved with the government to Quebec, becoming Under Secretary of State for Canada in Sir John A. Macdonald's government. When the new capital, Ottawa, was founded in 1865, much to his disappointment, he and the rest of the government were forced to move there, writing "the more I see of Ottawa, the more do I dislike and detest it." He was described as ‘one of the outstanding civil servants of his generation’, even if he was "destined to be a man forever ahead of his time." In 1870, John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar offered to Meredith the Chief-Justiceship of St. Lucia, which he declined.
Meredith is best remembered for his role in prison reform, of which he was an active exponent. Following the British North America Act, in 1867 he was appointed the Inspector then Chairman of the Board of Inspectors of Asylums and Prisons etc. Concerning his work on Prison Reform, the Montreal Gazette reported,
Mr Meredith deserves thanks that in this as in other directions he is labouring to promote social and educational reforms. We are happy in having men in the public service whose hearts are so thoroughly in their work as he has shown his is in the giant task of the amendment of our disgraceful prison life and prison discipline, and in cognate subjects
He founded the Ottawa Art Association, served as President of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, the Park Lawn Tennis Club (Toronto), the Civil Service Board, the Ottawa Literary and Scientific Society, and Vice-President of the Astronomical and Physical Society of Toronto, and finally the part-time position in retirement as Vice-President of the Toronto Loans and Assurance Company (a.k.a. Toronto General Trusts). However, Meredith's capacity for involving his own money in costly speculative ventures (that included organising a trip to Mexico in search of lost treasure) would have been something of a family joke if it hadn't proved to be so expensive for them!
He wrote and published numerous articles and pamphlets including "An Essay on the Oregon Question (1846)"; "Influence of Recent Gold Discoveries on Prices" (1856); "An Important but Neglectd Branch of Social Science" (1861); "Note on some Emendations (not hitherto suggested) in the text of Shakspeare, with a new explanation of an old passage" (1863); "Glance at the Present State of the Common Gaols of Canada; the individual separation of prisoners (with shortened sentences), recommended on moral and economic grounds" (1864); "Earth Sewage versus Water Sewage", and even a pamphlet on militia training in schools, though he himself did not enjoy "playing at soldiers." His writings, A Trip from Boston to Montreal in 1844 was published in 1925 by his eldest daughter Mary Meredith.
Meredith was awarded an honourary M.A., from Bishop's University, and that of LL.D., from McGill University. He was an honourary member of the American Association for the Promotion of Social Science.
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