Person Page 336

Her obituary was published in the Vancouver Sun on Nov. 21, 2015:
“MEREDITH, Barbara Mary
April 22, 1922 – November 12, 2015
Barbara Meredith had a long and happy life. When reflecting on her lifetime of ninety-three years, her eyes would sparkle and she would emphasize how lucky she had been to have had caring parents, a large and loving family and a wide circle of loyal friends. She also felt she was privileged to have lived in Vancouver and close to the sea.
Born in Vancouver in 1922, her parents were Georgina and Lawrence Diether, early residents of the city where her mother had also been born. Barbara enjoyed the companionship of her younger brother, Robert Lawrence Diether, who later married Doo Housser.
A graduate of Magee High School, Barbara completed three years at University of British Columbia before leaving in 1943, during the Second World War, to join The Women's Royal Canadian Navy. The WRENS, as it became known, had been founded in 1942 and was an element of The Royal Canadian Navy. Women performed non-combative roles ashore both in Canada and abroad. Barbara served with the Signal Corps in Ottawa until the end of the war. She lived in barracks and recalled seeing from there Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie-King walking his dog each day.
She used to say, "I can remember being so excited when leaving Vancouver for the first time. I had never been on a train before. That, for me, was real adventure."
Upon returning to Vancouver she completed a Commerce degree at U.B.C. in 1947, which was somewhat unusual for women at the time.
Barbara married John Roy McIntosh the following year. They had three children: Jane, John and Anna. They enjoyed happy family times in their home on Angus Drive. "Together my parents provided me with a wonderful, secure, exciting and fun childhood for which I will always be grateful and of which I will always have fond memories," recalls her son, John.
"Everything Mum did she did with much enthusiasm and always a twinkle in her eyes, be it playing golf, bridge, painting or sailing the coast of British Columbia," recounts Jane Frost, her daughter, with whom she lived in her spry nineties.
Barbara was among the first Friends of the Gardens of U.B.C. Botanical Garden - a membership and interest she maintained for a lifetime. The same was true of her passion for the books by Jane Austen. She took part in the activities of the Jane Austen Society of North America for many years.
Barbara married The Honourable Kenneth Elliott Meredith in 1976. He was a Vancouver lawyer and judge of the Supreme Court of B.C. who had distinguished himself during the Second World War as Captain of the Corvette H.M.C.S. Trillium, making him, at twenty-one, one of the youngest commanders in the British Commonwealth at the time.
Their extended family life was one of devotion to Barbara's and Ken's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Ken's family consists of Deborah Meredith and Perry Goldsmith and their children Blair, Robyn and Fraser; Guy Meredith and his children, Danielle and Nicola; and Daphne Meredith and Gilles Verret and their children Nigel and William. Barbara's family consists of Anna and Mark Termuende; Jane Frost and her children Gardy and Kate Frost, Adam Frost and Nora Cranley, and Wilson and Alana Frost; and John and Candy and their children John, Jamie and Tim McIntosh. Barbara's great-grandchildren are Avery, Charlie, Hudson, Dashiell, Emmett and Harlow.
"Barbara was known to her family as 'Bobby,'" says her daughter Anna. "She was the matriarch to whom we all turned for wise advice, understanding, fun and love. All of this large family will miss Bobby very much. She was a force in our lives."
The family extends their thanks to Maureen McIntosh and the staff at Braddan Private Hospital and Dr. Michael Burns from Raven Song Community Health Centre for their exceptional care of Barbara. A special thanks to Dr. Saul Isserow whose long term care maintained Barbara's quality of life. A Memorial Service will be held at St. Mary's Anglican Church at 37th and Larch on Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 3 p.m. In lieu of flowers please make a donation to the UBC Botanical Gardens, http://support.ubc.ca/botanical- garden-fund.”.

For further information see the citations below.¹

She was the daughter of A.G.F. Lawrence and Marjorie Palmer Sanderson.

She was enumerated in the 1901 census as a tailoress of Thomas Street, aged 30. Her marriage certificate names her father as Michael Meredith, Bellows Maker.

He was a Slater and a widower of 129 Francis Street at the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Meredith. He married his first wife Julia O’Brien in 1867. He was the son of Andrew Rutledge, also a Slater.

For further information see the citations below.¹

He was the son of James Furney, a Farmer.

He was a land surveyor and civil engineer working on contracts in Scotland and in Ireland. He may have been a native of England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland.

He was living in Lossiemouth, Scotland at the time of his marriage in 1810. By 1809 he was a land surveyor for the Sutherland Estate and was engaged in surveying new villages and a pier at Golspie. He appeared in a census of Golspie in 1811.

He was working in Ireland by 1812, employed by the Irish Bogs Commissioners. Their report of 1814 gives his total salary and allowances as £429 -19 -6 on a rate of 1 guinea a day, employed for 412 days.

He worked for some of the time in Ireland with the Scottish-born engineer and surveyor Alexander Nimmo, who had an office in Dublin. If Benjamin was of a similar age, then he would have been born ca. 1783.

He was engaged in the repair of the Highway Archway Road in London in 1829. His son John Jenner Meredith was born in Nov 1829 in Cork, so Benjamin may have left his family in Ireland while carrying out the work, returning afterwards. There seems to be no record of his or Frances's death in the English records, and the Irish records for that period are sparse.^2,3

He was a widower and State School Teacher at the time of his marriage to Margaret McFarlane.

He is commemorated along with his wife and son Benjamin in a stained glass window at Colac St. Johns’s Anglican Church. According to the Victorian Heritage Database Report:
“The stained glass memorial window was commissioned by the surviving children of John and Margaret Meredith, Annie Frances T and her younger brother, the Rev. Charles W Meredith. The Rev. Canon Davison wrote to stained glass artist William Montgomery in May 1919 suggesting the subject of St. George for a memorial window in the church. Montgomery sent the sketch on 24 May and estimated the price to be £65. St. George, was usually a lone figure in any commemorative window and here represented soldier Bejamin Meredith. An account for £74 was issued on 1 September 1920, a cost that reflects the more complex nature of the final design, with three figures and a lengthy inscription. The badge of the Australian Commonwealth Forces was placed prominently above the lengthy inscription. “.¹

She was the daughter of Peter MacFarlane, a Grazier, and Anne Robertson.

He was killed at the battle of Beersheba in World War I.

According to the Victorian Heritage Database Report:
“On 31 August 1914, 32 year-old grazier Benjamin Peter George Meredith, enlisted in the 4 Australian Light Horse and went to Gallipoli via Egypt but was invalided out to England with enteric fever in September. He returned to Egypt in July 1916 where he undertook several postings before his promotion to 2nd Lieutenant in his old regiment, and then to Lieutenant in June 1917. After further officer training he returned to 4 Light Horse on the 19 August 1917 and was killed in action at Beersheba on 31 October 1917. Lieutenant Meredith was buried by Chaplain Dunbar on 1 November 1917 and his name recorded at Beersheba War Cemetery, Israel.”

His gravestone is inscribed with: "The Dear Brother of Annie F.T. & Charles Meredith Larpent, Victoria R.I.P."¹

He was a Civil Engineer. His obituary, published in 1866 in the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, is given in Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History:

“MR. GEORGE MEREDITH was born in Dublin on the 8th of December, 1817 ; he was the second son of [Benjamin Meredith|Mr. Benjamin Meredith]], Civil Engineer, who successfully executed several important works in Ireland, and was engaged under Mr. George Stephenson in the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, his experience in the formation of public highways over marshy land in Ireland having enabled him to afford some useful suggestions in regard to the mode of passing over Chat Moss.
Mr. George Meredith, having received a good education, was for a time under his father’s tuition, learning the theory of the profession, and at the age of sixteen was admitted into the office of the late Mr. J. U. Rastrick (M. Inst. C.E.), where he remained until the commencement of the construction of the London and Brighton Railway Company’s lines in Sussex, when, in 1836, he was appointed Assistant Engineer under the late Mr. Statham (M. Inst. C.E.), and had charge of the construction of that portion of the line between Brighton and Shoreham, and of that from Brighton to Hayward‘s Heath, including the Clayton and the Patcham Tunnels.
Subsequently he was appointed Resident District Engineer on the Brighton, Lewes, and Hastings Railway, on which line he superintended and carried out several large works, including the curved viaduct from the Brighton Station, in the direction of Lewes ; the tunnels at Rose Hill, Falmer, and Lewes, and a draw-bridge for carrying the railway over the River Ouse near Lewes.
He afterwards took charge, for the same company, as Resident Engineer, of the Keymer Branch, from Hayward's Heath to Lewes.
In 1847 he accepted the position of District Engineer, during the construction of the Nottingham and Grantham Railway, where, among other works, he executed the Gonerley Tunnel. He also designed and superintended the execution of the Grantham waterworks, reservoir, &c.
In 1852, Mr. George Meredith went to Holland, as the representative of an English contractor, during the construction of the Antwerp and Rotterdam Railway, and on the completion of those works he was named Engineer to the Ottoman Railway Company, from Smyrna to Aidin.
He next made a survey of a proposed line of railway from Constantinople to Adrianople, and he returned to England with the intention of taking measures to have this line carried out, when he was suddenly seized with an illness which terminated fatally on the 21st of October, 1864, in the forty-seventh year of his age.
Mr. Meredith was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers on the 6th of March, 1849, and was occasionally present at the meetings. He was of an unassuming and retiring disposition - of a frank and genial temperament - was much esteemed by his friends and acquaintance - and gave general satisfaction to all those by whom he was employed.”.³

She was enumerated in the 1851 England census in Grantham, in the household of her brother George.