 Thomas Meredith was a grandson of the John Meredith (1711–1786) of Templerany, who c.1750 had two portraits (one large, one small) painted with his whippet by William Hoare at Bath.From his childhood home in Dublin on Harcourt Street, he was tutored by a relative, Samuel Crumpe, a first cousin of the better known Dr Samuel Crumpe.Meredith's father signed him into Trinity College, Dublin, as a pensioner in 1791 (spelling his name 'Meredyth').