 Meredith was the youngest son of Chief Justice Sir William Collis Meredith of Quebec and his wife, Sophia Naters Holmes (1820–1898), grand-daughter of William Holmes.One of his godfathers was his father's first cousin, Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell, and the other was his uncle, Edmund Allen Meredith, for whom he was given his middle name.Edmund Meredith was also uncle and godfather to Sir Augustus Meredith Nanton, with whom Meredith would later sit with on the board of the Canadian Pacific Railway.