Thomas Meredith

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The Rev. Thomas Meredith (1777-1819) D.D., F.T.C.D. Irish clergyman, mathematician, and Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin

Thomas Meredith was born at Templerainy House, Co. Wicklow in 1777, and baptised at the Protestant church in Rathdrum. He was the eldest son of Ralph Meredith (1748-1799) of Templerainy House, and later Attorney Exchequer of Dublin, by his wife Martha (1752-1834), daughter of Thomas Chaytor of Charlemont Place, Dublin.

Initially educated privately by a Mr Crump, Thomas's father signed him into Trinity College, Dublin in 1791 (spelling his name 'Meredyth'). Two years later, in 1793, he was elected a scholar of the College, and in 1795 he graduated with a B.A. Presumably he spent the next few years working on mathematical theories which clearly impressed the senior fellows of Trinity as in 1805 he was not just awarded his M.A., but he was also elected a Fellow of the College (F.T.C.D.).

In 1811 he was awarded his B.D., and the following year, in 1812, he became a Doctor of Divinity (D.D.). He retired his fellowship in 1813 to take the position of Rector of Ardtrea, Co. Tyrone, holding that position until his untimely death. Thomas Meredith is remembered as a distinguished mathematician.

At Dublin on 7th July, 1807, Thomas married Eliza (Elizabeth) Mary (1792-1855), the eldest daughter of The Very Rev. Richard Graves (1763-1829) D.D., S F.T.C.D., Dean of Ardagh, Co. Cork, by his wife, Elizabeth Mary (1767-1827), the eldest daughter of The Rev. James Drought (1738-1820) D.D., S.F.T.C.D., of Ballyboy, King's Co. (Co. Offaly). The marriage settlement, dated the same day, was signed by the bride and groom, Thomas' brother John, the bride's father (Richard Graves), one of the bride's paternal uncle's, John Graves of Fort William, Co. Limerick, and one of the bride's maternal uncles, Robert S. Drought of Ridgemount House, King's County. Eliza Meredith was described as ‘a lady of much culture and refinement, and possessed also of great energy and force of character.’

Thomas and Eliza Meredith left seven children : (1) Anne (or Mary-Anne) Meredith (b.1808 or 1809), ‘both beautiful and accomplished. A born actress, she could move her hearers to tears or laughter, and a musician too’. Anne died in early adulthood, unmarried (2) Harriet Meredith (1810-1906). In 1841 she married William Henry Kittson (1810-1882), Collector of H.M. Customs at Hamilton and Cobourg, Upper Canada. He was the son of George Kittson (1759-1832) of Sorel, Quebec (3) The Rev. Richard Graves Meredith (1810-1871), Rector of Knockavilly and Timoleague, Co. Cork. He was married twice. Firstly in 1841 to Maria (d.1848), second daughter of Thomas Johnston of Fort Johnston, Co. Monaghan, by his wife Martha, daughter of The Rev. James Hingston (1755-1840) J.P., of Aglish House, Co. Cork, Vicar-General of Cloyne. In 1850 he married Ellen (1822-1873), daughter of James Randal Howe of Glanavirane House, Co. Cork, son of Randal Howe of Glanavirane House, High Sheriff of Co. Cork (4) Chief Justice The Hon. Sir William Collis Meredith (1812-1894) Q.C., D.C.L. of Quebec. In 1847 he married Sophia Naiters (1820-1898), the youngest daughter of William Edward Holmes (1796-1825) Esq. M.D., of Quebec, by his wife Anne (1788-1865), daughter of Colonel James Johnston (1724-1800) (5)(Ralph) Henry Howard Meredith (1815-1892) of Rosebank House, Port Hope, Upper Canada. In 1840 he married Margaret (1818-1901), the third daughter of The Hon. John Brown (1790-1842) M.L.A., of Port Hope (6) Edmund Allen Meredith (1817-1899), Under Secretary of State, Canada. In 1851 he married ‘Fanny’, Anne Frances (1830-1919), eldest daughter of William Botsford Jarvis (1799-1864) of Rosedale House, High Sheriff of York (Toronto), by his wife Mary Boyles Powell, granddaughter of William Dummer Powell (1755-1834), Chief Justice of Upper Canada (7) Thomas L. Meredith (1819-1843), died unmarried in Ireland.

In Dublin the Merediths lived at No.1 Fitzwilliam Square where Thomas kept a collection of books and maps. He inherited land in Co. Wicklow and houses in Dublin (from his mother's family). When the family moved to Ardtrea in 1813 he was remembered to have never turned a man away from his door, always having a silver piece for those who came to him.

There is a curious story told about Meredith shooting at a ghost with a silver bullet in a book called ‘Memorials to the Dead’ (published 1903, page 462), in regards to the ‘sudden and awful visitation’ that took his life in 1819’. The exert below is taken from a letter by The Rev. W. Ernest R. Scott, written in 1924 to Lt.-Colonel Colborne Powell Meredith (1874-1966), one of Thomas’s grandsons.

The Rev. Ernest Scott, then the Rector of Ardtrea, was married to Adelaide, daughter of Sir James Creed Meredith (1842-1912), by his third wife Ellen Graves Meredith, a daughter of Thomas Meredith’s eldest son, The Rev. Richard Graves Meredith (1810-1871) :

In the parish of Ardtrea, in the County of Tyrone, Ireland, stands the big rectory in which I took up my abode, with my family, on my appointment to the living in 1914. It is a curious house, with a curious history - a huge, grim, rambling building standing in the midst of forty-five acres of grounds (which would have been more in the time of Thomas Meredith). Erected over a century ago (1805) for a wealthy incumbent (the man who Meredith succeeded), at a time when parochial values were very different from what they are today, the atmosphere of the place seems to be impregnated with that peculiar blend of mystery and superstition which surrounds so many old houses of the kind. The rectory of Ardtrea, however, would appear to have more justification than most for the mixed feelings with which it is regarded by the simple country folk around.

Its very situation lends itself to thoughts of the mysterious. Magnificent beech trees stand upon the lawn (which it is said were planted by the sons of Thomas Meredith), and other forest giants and mournful yews are ringed about the grey old mansion. The long carriage-drive, too, is guarded by a noble avenue of great trees, and thick masses of ivy cluster upon the walls which flank the great wooden door enclosing the courtyard.

If its situation and appearance bears the impress of the unusual, so likewise do its traditions. One of its first inhabitants (the second), Dr Thomas Meredith, a former Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, Rector of Ardtrea for six years, and great-grandfather of my wife, died within its doors in 1819 from a ‘sudden and awful visitation’, as his tombstone states.

Exactly what this was no one seems to know, but the story runs that a governess employed by Dr Meredith was troubled by a ghost, which took the form of a lady arrayed in white - possibly, averred local tradition, the Virgin Saint Trea, who lived hereabout in the fifth century. This apparition greatly troubled the good doctor, and on the advice of a friend he charged a gun with a solid silver bullet and lay in wait for the midnight visitor. In due course a report (shot) was heard, and next day the Rector lay dying upon the flagged floor of a basement room. From that hour the country-people looked a skant upon the ‘haunted’ house, and avoided it whenever possible.

Another variation of the story appears in 'True Irish Ghost Stories' by John Drelincourt Seymour, a relative of Thomas' wife, under the chapter 'Legendary and Ancestral ghosts'. [1]

The Rev. Charles Wolfe (1791-1823) of Blackhall, Co. Kildare, was much attached and a great admirer of Thomas Meredith, although fourteen years his younger. He was the Curate of nearby Donoughmore, and a frequent guest at Ardtrea. Remembered today for his poem 'The Burial of Sir John Moore', Wolfe also wrote the inscription on Meredith's memorial at the Church of Ardtrea made of black and white marble and surmounted by the Meredith crest and coat of arms (the lion rampant, halved with three goat's heads) :

Sacred to the memory of THOMAS MEREDITH D.D., Formerly Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, And 6 years Rector of this Parish. A man who gave to learning a beauty not its own, And threw over Science and Literature the lustre of the Gospel And the sweet influence of Christianity. The talents which he clothed in humility And his silent and unobtrusive benevolence Were unable to escape the respect and admiration of society: But those who witnessed him in the bosom of his family And shared the treasures of his conversation Seldom failed to find the ways of wisdom more pleasant than before And to discover fresh loveliness in that Gospel Upon which his hopes and his ministry were founded He was summoned from a family of which he was the support and delight And from the flock to which he was eminently endeared On 2nd May 1819 in the 42nd year of his age By a sudden and awful visitation but he knew That his Redeemer lived. ‘Erected by his Sons’.

Wolfe wrote a letter in 1817 demonstrating how he valued Meredith’s friendship :

I am surrounded by grandees, who count their income by thousands, and by clergymen innumerable; however, I have kept out of their reach; I have preferred my turf-fire, my books, and the memory of the friends I have left, to all the society that Tyrone can furnish… with one bright exception. At Meredith’s I am indeed every way at home; I am at home in friendship and hospitality, in science and literature, in our common friends and acquaintance, and in topics of religion.

Wolfe wrote a letter to a friend, headed ‘Castle Caulfield, May 4th, 1819’, expressing his anguish at Meredith’s death and expressing his deep friendship towards him :

My Dear… I am just come from the house of mourning. Last night I helped to lay poor Meredith in his coffin, and followed him this morning to his grave. The visitation was truly awful. Last Tuesday (this day week) he was struck to the ground by a fit of apoplexy, and from that moment until the hour of his death on Sunday evening he never articulated. I did not hear of his danger until Sunday evening, and yesterday morning I ran ten miles, like a madman, and was only in time to see his dead body. It will be a cruel and bitter thought to me for many a day, that I had not one farewell from him, while he was on the brink of the world. Oh… one of my heart-strings is broken… he was the one person in whose society I took the greatest delight. A visit to Ardtrea was often in prospect to sustain me in many of my cheerless labours… Dr Meredith was a man of a truly Christian temper of mind. You know that he was possessed of the first and most distinguishing characteristic of a Christian disposition - humility.

The Very Rev. Richard Graves (1763-1829), Dean of Ardagh (Co. Cork) wrote in 1819 :

… and now another apparently most calamitous visitation presents itself, in the sudden death of my beloved and excellent son-in-law, by apoplexy, a disorder of which of all men he seemed least liable.

An article was written for the Dublin University Magazine in 1842 by Robert Perceval Graves (son of John Crosbie Graves (1776-1835), a first cousin of Thomas Meredith’s wife, Eliza) celebrating the achievements of his friend Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865). Thomas Meredith was one of the first to recognise Hamilton’s extraordinary intellectual abilities :

We well remember to have heard, long before we ever saw our friend, of Dr Meredith, formerly Fellow of Trinity College, and a man of great learning and ability, reporting with expressions of astonishment, that he had examined in the country a child of six or seven, who read and translated and understood Hebrew better than many candidates for fellowship; this child was young Hamilton.

On his death in 1819, Freeman’s Journal of Dublin reported :

…Learned, amiable, and unassuming, he (Thomas Meredith) was unfeignedly respected and sincerely beloved by his numerous acquaintance and friends, all of whom deeply deplore his premature departure. He has left behind him an amiable and disconsolate widow and a family of seven children, most of whom are yet too young to feel the irreparable loss which they have sustained.