Sir William Collis Meredith, (23 May 1812 – 26 February 1894) 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 (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 remarried her mother's cousin, James Edmund Burton (1776–1850), 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