Charles Meredith (banker)

Charles Meredith

Charles Meredith (December 17, 1854 – January 7, 1928) was a Canadian banker, President of the Montreal Stock Exchange, and the builder of Charles Meredith House, now part of McGill University, Montreal

Family

Born October 17, 1854, into 'a home rich in cultural elements' on Talbot Street, London, Upper Canada, the seventh son of John Walsingham Cooke Meredith and his wife Sarah (1818–1900), daughter of Anthony Pegler (1792–1871) of King's Stanley, Gloucestershire. Charles and his well known brothers were collectively known as The Eight London Merediths who included amongst them Sir William Ralph Meredith, Chief Justice Richard Martin Meredith, Sir Vincent Meredith and Thomas Graves Meredith Q.C., first cousins of The Rt. Hon. Richard Edmund Meredith. His father was a first cousin of Sir William Collis Meredith of Quebec, Edmund Allen Meredith and Sir James Creed Meredith (1842–1912), the father of Judge James Creed Meredith.

C. Meredith & Co.

Educated at Hellmuth College, London, Charles started his business career with the Merchant’s Bank in 1872, rising to the position of manager of the Western branches at Regina and Brandon. In 1887 he came to Montreal, where he purchased a seat on the stock exchange and formed C. Meredith & Co. Ltd, Stock and Bond brokers, with offices on St.-Francois-Xavier Street. The company, which soon established itself as the leading bond house in Montreal, later changed it’s name to the United Financial Corporation Ltd. Meredith was President of both of these institutions until they amalgamated with the National City Company.

After Dominion Securities, Meredith's was the first Canadian stockbroking firm to open an office in London, mainly due to the close relationship the company held with the Bank of Montreal, Canada's largest and most powerful commercial bank. Many of the directors of the Bank of Montreal were also directors and shareholders of C. Meredith & Co.

When Gerald Farrell became the secretary-treasurer of Meredith's in 1908, the firm began to engage in industrial merger promotion. By 1910 the firm had established an office in London and was acting as an issue house in England by at least 1913.

In 1902 Charles Meredith had been elected President of the Montreal Stock Exchange, a position he held until 1905. In 1910 he became President of Hillcress Collier Ltd, and was a director of the British and Colonial Press Service, as well as being a member of the Board of Arbitration and the Montreal Board of Trade. He worked on the exchange for nearly twenty years, and at his retirement was one of its oldest members. His business was largely of an investment class and he discouraged speculative ventures on the part of his clients, grounding his reputation in financial circles as one of the highest integrity.

Because of his failing health, Meredith was forced to retire from business life in 1924, though he maintained a considerable financial interest and a friendly connection with the firm of his successors as stock and bond brokers, Crutchlow, Dean and Co.

Marriage

Charles Meredith House

In 1893, Charles Meredith married Elspeth Hudson Angus (1858–1936), daughter of Richard Bladworth Angus, co-founder of Canadian Pacific Railway and President of the Bank of Montreal from 1910 to 1913. As a wedding present Richard Angus bought the newly-weds a house known as ‘The Gatehouse’ (which still stands as part of the McGill Faculty of Law, known as the Angus-McIntyre House) on Peel Street. In 1904, the Merediths commissioned Edward Maxwell to build them a large three-storey house at 538 Pine Avenue, which was completed a year later in the Golden Square Mile. Mrs Meredith lived there until her death, when she left it to be used as a residence for the nurses of the Royal Victoria Hospital (Montreal). In the 1970s it was bought by McGill University, and serves today as part of the McGill Faculty for Medicine, known as Charles Meredith House. Their old house on Peel Street was afterwards lived in by another of the 'Eight London Merediths', John Stanley Meredith (1843–1920), Director-General of the Merchant's Bank, Montreal.

In 1897 the Merediths bought 'Bally Bawn', a country house built around a library in 1750 by the Sulpicians, near Fort Senneville and Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec. They employed the architect Edward Maxwell to design some additions and alterations to the house, later added to again in 1909, giving the house its present size. "An impressive country residence marked by three high gables... Hidden behind the estate's foliage, amidst many flowerbeds, was a tennis court, garages, cottages for the chauffeurs and gardeners, henhouses, greenhouses and various other auxiliary buildings," (McGill University Papers).

Private life

Like many of his brothers, Meredith shared with them an enthusiasm for flowers and gardening. He kept a well-stocked conservatory in his Montreal home (where on one occasion he chose to have his portrait taken) and always looked forward to the summer at his country house where he could spend as much of the season as possible gardening. His knowledge of gardening and tree culture was said to be 'comparable to a good professional gardener'.

In his earlier years Mr Meredith had been 'an athlete of renown' (The Storied Province of Quebec). He was a good rower and boxer, and very fond of outdoor exercise of all descriptions. He loved to fish and was an excellent shot too. He was a director of the Quebec Fish and Game Association and the Montreal Parks and Playgrounds Association. His clubs included the Mount Royal Club, St. James's Club, Montreal Racquet Club, Royal Montreal Golf Club, Empire Club of Canada, Montreal Jockey Club, Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club and the Montreal Hunt.

He maintained a lively interest in world events until the close of his life, becoming something of a kindly philosopher, understanding mankind as it is given few men to understand their fellows. He found the world a good place in which to live, and was at peace with things as he found them, though ever alert to make improvements where possible and wise... Meredith, ‘the popular stockbroker’, was a benefactor of Montreal in many ways, assisting in all leading movements for its betterment, and he gave liberally to the causes of charity

Charles and Elspeth Meredith died without children. Mrs Meredith was a godmother to some of her Angus nephews and nieces as well as to 'the Montreal English theatre icon', Roseanna Seaborn Todd, grand-daughter of the General-Manager of the Bank of Montreal, Sir Edward Clouston, 1st Baronet. Mr and Mrs Meredith are buried at Mount Royal Cemetery, Montreal, next to Sir Vincent Meredith and Lady Meredith, and their cousin, Frederick Edmund Meredith.

Related newspaper articles

• Charles Meredith's Retirement from the Merchant's Bank
• Building a Ritz Hotel in Montreal
• Meredith Estate Case Appeal Filed
• Appeal For Share Of Estate Worth $2,500,000 Fails
• Art Collection of R.B. Angus, of Montreal

Photographs

• A portrait of Meredith's grandmother, Magdalene (Redmond) Meredith (1785-1851), that hung in his dining room in Montreal
• Miss Elspeth Angus (left) with her sisters in fancy dress, 1886
• Front elevation of Charles Meredith House
• Rear elevation of Charles Meredith House
• Mr Meredith (left in hat) at the Meighen's garden party, 1908

Persondata
Name	Meredith, Charles
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	December 17, 1854
Place of birth
Date of death	January 7, 1928
Place of death