1. Sir Henry Vincent Meredith, 1st Baronet, was a Canadian banker and philanthropist.
24 Facts About Vincent Meredith
1. 2.
Vincent Meredith was president of the Bank of Montreal, the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
3.
Vincent Meredith was governor of McGill University and on the board of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
4.
Vincent Meredith was born in London, Ontario, the fifth son of John Walsingham Cooke Meredith and Sarah Pegler.
5.
Vincent Meredith was one of a group of brothers collectively referred to as 'The Eight London Merediths'.
6.
Vincent Meredith steadily rose through the ranks to become the first Canadian-born president of the bank from 1913 to 1927.
7.
When Vincent Meredith was elected president in 1913, the bank had assets worth $244 million, which had tripled to $831 million when he resigned his presidency in 1927.
8.
Vincent Meredith had little academic education, but he formed his mind and character in the school of a long and complex experience.
9.
Vincent Meredith has not only grown with Canada, and the Bank of Montreal, but has helped to strengthen and fashion both.
10.
When one considers the work of Sir Vincent Meredith, it is impossible to refuse him the praise of being the most eminent of living Canadian bankers.
11.
Vincent Meredith served as governor of McGill University, president of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and president of the Royal Victoria Hospital.
12.
Vincent Meredith was created a hereditary Baronet of the United Kingdom by King George V for his wartime services to Canada and the British Empire in 1916.
13.
In 1888, Vincent Meredith married Brenda Allan, the youngest daughter of Andrew Allan, who had then succeeded his elder brother, Sir Hugh Allan, as president of the Allan Line and the Merchant's Bank etc.
14.
Lady Vincent Meredith House was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1990.
15.
In 1942, Lady Vincent Meredith donated the house to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, as a residence for the nurses.
16.
Brenda Vincent Meredith donated the Lady Vincent Meredith Cup for the Quebec Ladies' Hockey Association in 1920, the first ice hockey trophy in Canada to be competed for between women in ankle-length skirts.
17.
Vincent Meredith was a member and benefactor of the Presbyterian Church of St Andrew and St Paul, Montreal, and was one of the founders of the Montreal Ladies Golf Club.
18.
Lady Vincent Meredith was the godmother of Frederick Edmund Vincent Meredith's only grandson, and the only son of her first cousin, Sir Montagu Allan.
19.
In sports, he donated the 'Sir Vincent Meredith Trophy' awarded to the best all-round athlete of the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association, as well as giving the Meredith Cup for the Waltzing Competition held at the Winter Club, and the Meredith Trophy awarded at the Dominion Drama Festival.
20.
Vincent Meredith rode with the Montreal Hunt, played polo in Senneville, Quebec, and they both imported many fine horses from Ireland and England.
21.
Vincent Meredith belonged to many clubs in Montreal and England, and he was amongst the founding members of the Mount Royal Club in Montreal, the Ritz-Carlton Montreal Hotel and the Montreal Winter Club.
22.
Vincent Meredith never gave way to violent anger, preferring the rapier to the bludgeon as a weapon.
23.
Sir Vincent Meredith died in 1929 without children, and thus his short-lived baronetcy became extinct.
24.
Vincent Meredith's wife continued to live in their Montreal home until 1941, when she gave it to the Royal Victoria Hospital to use as a nurses residence.