William Collis Meredith
Sir William Collis Meredith, was Chief Justice of the Superior Court for the Province of Quebec from 1866 to 1884. In 1844, he was offered but refused the positions of Solicitor General of Canada and then Attorney-General for Canada East - the latter position he turned down again in 1847. In 1887, he was one of the two English-speaking candidates considered by the Liberals for the role of Lieutenant Governor of Quebec. The home he commissioned and lived in at Montreal from 1845 to 1849 still stands today, known as the Notman House.
Early life
Born May 23, 1812, at No.1 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, second son of the Rev. Thomas Meredith and his wife Elizabeth Maria Graves, the eldest daughter of the Very Rev. Richard Graves, Dean of Ardagh. He was named for his father's first cousin, William Collis 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 remarried her mother's cousin, James Edmund Burton, a first cousin of Henry Peard 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, Quebec, 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, County 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.
Duel and rebellion
On Monday, August 9, 1837, at eight o'clock in the evening, Meredith fought a duel with pistols against James Scott, no stranger to such events. Earlier that day, following a dispute over legal costs, Meredith challenged Scott. He chose James McGill Blackwood to second him, while Scott's choice was Joseph-Ferreol Pelletier. The duel took place behind Mount Royal, and the pistols used were Meredith's which he had bought in London, on a previous trip to England. On the first exchange Scott took a bullet high up in the thigh, and the duel was called to a stop. List of duels Meredith v Scott, 1837, under 'Canadian Duels'.The bullet in Scott's thigh bone lodged itself in such a way that it could not be removed by doctors, causing him great discomfort for the rest of his days. Ironically for Scott, this was exactly where he had shot Sweeney Campbell in a duel when they were students. In the early 1850s, when both the adversaries had become judges, one of the sights then to see was Meredith helping his brother judge up the steep Court House steps, Scott being still hindered by the lameness in his leg since their encounter.
Not long after the duel, his career was interrupted again by the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837. Under the command of Lt.-Colonel Clément-Charles Sabrevois de Bleury, with whom he had articled with a few years previously, Meredith joined the Montreal Rifles as a Lieutenant and saw action against the French rebels at the Battle of Saint-Eustache, reaching the rank of Major in the militia.
Montreal
From the late 1830s Meredith, "a careful, shrewd lawyer", was senior partner of the firm Meredith & Bethune and subsequently Meredith, Bethune & Dunkin. Their offices were situated at 33 Little St. James Street and the firm was described in the 1840s as the most influential in Montreal, having brought together the largest legal business by any one firm in the Province of Quebec. In 1843, he commissioned John Wells, to build him a home beyond the walls of Old Montreal on a spacious plot of land surrounded by fields, Elm and Maple trees. It still stands today, known as the Notman House.In 1844, he was created a Queen's Counsel, declining the office of Solicitor General, and subsequently that of Attorney-General, which he declined again for the second time in 1847 during the Draper administration. Meredith disliked politics. In the same year Chief Justice Joseph-Rémi Vallières de Saint-Réal offered him the position of Dean of Law at McGill University, which he also turned down - a position his grandson, William Campbell James Meredith, later held.
He was one of the founding members and a director of the High School of Montreal, which was established with his help in 1843 and soon superseded the Royal Grammar School. He was counsel to the board of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning and on the committee to save McGill University in the early 1840s. He conducted a good deal of business for the university, and it was with his influence that his younger brother, Edmund Allen Meredith, became the sixth principal of McGill from 1846 to 1853. In 1848, he was a founding director and trustee of the Montreal Mining Company along with Peter McGill, George Moffatt, Sir George Simpson, Sir Allan Napier MacNab and James Ferrier.
Quebec
In December 1849, Meredith was appointed to be one of the first ten judges of the newly established Superior Court for the Province of Quebec, by the Lafontaine–Baldwin government, a position he held for ten years. However, this meant abandoning with some reluctance the practice of a profession to which he was greatly attached, and in doing so relinquished a profitable business in Montreal. During Lord Elgin's term as Governor General of Canada, Meredith was elected one of the judges of the Seigneurial Court. In 1859, 'at the earnest solicitation of the government and in compliance with the members of the Montreal bar', he accepted a seat from Sir George-Étienne Cartier, as a judge in the Court of Queen's Bench, that being the Court of Appeals for the province. Several of his judgments were spoken of very highly by the lords of the Privy Council in England. He filled the position for seven years 'with marked ability and success'. On December 28, 1854, he was given an honorary D.C.L. from Bishop's University College, Lennoxville. In 1880, he received the honor for a second time, from Université Laval. In 1865, at a private meeting of the board of governors of Bishop's University he was unanimously elected to become the university's new Chancellor, but due to his existing official duties he declined the position. His youngest son, Frederick Edmund Meredith, would hold the position from 1926 to 1932.Meredith's friend Sir John Abbott, who had studied law under him and later became Prime Minister of Canada, was a reluctant supporter of Canadian Confederation in 1866. Abbott feared that it would reduce the English-speaking inhabitants of Lower Canada to political impotence. Among others, he consulted with Meredith and Meredith's former business partner, Christopher Dunkin. They drafted a resolution calling on the government to protect the electoral borders of twelve English Quebec constituencies. Subsequently, Alexander Tilloch Galt endorsed the proposal, had the London Conference of 1866 accept it, and included it as Article 80 of the British North America Act, 1867.
In 1866, following the death of one of Meredith's closest friends, Edward Bowen, Sir George-Étienne Cartier appointed him Chief Justice of the Superior Court for the Province of Quebec. Judge Caron rivalled him for the position, but the influential and affable D'Arcy McGee, a close associate of Meredith's brother, made a few favourable representations on Meredith's behalf, easing the way for his appointment to the position. In the years before his retirement he was the oldest judge on the Bench in Canada, 'still going with his characteristic energy and ability'. Chief Justice Meredith finally retired for health reasons, in this his final office, October 1, 1884. The government did their best to keep him from resigning his post, but Meredith declined their offers to accept leave of absence with the understanding that his full salary would be paid and his resignation subsequently accepted. Two years later he was created a Knight Bachelor by Queen Victoria. Meredith had been as popular among the French as he was among the English, which was extremely rare for the time. This is made clear from an article written in the French journal L'Electeur at his retirement,
La retraite de M. le juge Meredith va creer un vif chagrin dans le barreau comme parmi le public. Jamais en effet un magistrat ne sut mieux se concilier leftie des avocats sans cesse en rapport avec lui et la confiance du public. Jurisconsulte eminent, magistrat dont la reputation d'honorabilite a toujours ete au-dessus du soupcon, bienveillent pour tout la monde, d'un politesse vraiment exquise, M. le juge en chef va laisser une vide bien difficile a remplir.
In 1887, on the retirement of Louis-Rodrigue Masson as Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, the Liberal government favoured an English-speaking replacement. Along with his wife's cousin, George Irvine, Meredith was named as one of the two men, who if appointed, would bring the greatest satisfaction to the English-speaking minority. Neither Meredith nor Irvine were appointed, the new government instead choosing another French-speaking Quebecer, Sir Auguste-Réal Angers. At Meredith's death in 1894, the Legal News printed: The late Chief Justice was a diligent advocate and judge, and conscientious and painstaking in the performance of every duty. The opinions delivered by him from the bench have always been cited with the greatest respect and many of them are models of what a judicial opinion should be. They excel in clearness, are ample without ceasing to be concise, and bring light and satisfaction to the reader.