The diary he kept from 1844 until his death is preserved in the National Archives of Canada and formed the basis for the first half of Sandra Gwyn's book The Private Capital: Ambition and Love in the Age of Macdonald and Laurier (1985), which the CBC later made into a television series.

In his first diary entry of that year, Meredith talks of his decision to leave Ireland for Canada, revealing his personal angst over the upheaval: "It now seems strange to me that I could have dreamed, even for an instant, of banishing myself from the society of my brother (Richard - Secretary of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland), and setting up on my own account among complete strangers.

Meredith is depicted along with other members including future Judge Frederick William Torrance, Sir Allan Napier MacNab and John Young (Canadian politician).

(Meredith) was tall (five foot eleven), very slim (one hundred and sixty-five pounds), and distinguished in appearance - his hazel eyes were most expressive, and his jet black hair set off his charming face.

His manner was easy and courteous, his voice one to coax the birds off the bough, and his dark blue suit of Broadcloth was in excellent taste and worn with an air.... For all his good looks and cleverness, Meredith's lonely and uncertain childhood had left him with a self-doubting diffidence, a certain lack of mettle that would leave him, in the end, somewhat disappointed and unfulfilled.

But in the beginning, as a clever young barrister with a natural flair for fun and games, and an Irish talent for making friends, he and Canada got on like a house on fire.

Though a late-bloomer on skates, he turned out to be a whizz at hockey, playing on the frozen St. Lawrence... More significantly for his career, he also developed a notable flair for administration and quiet diplomacy.

The hockey sticks were cut from the Gorna Bush; the puck was a piece of oak, and the goals were a mile and a half apart on clear ice, not often found between Quebec and the Island of Orleans.

However, Meredith's capacity for involving his own money in costly speculative ventures (that included organising a trip to Mexico in search of lost treasure) would have been something of a family joke if it hadn't proved to be so expensive for them!

He wrote and published numerous articles and pamphlets, including "An Essay on the Oregon Question (1846)"; "Influence of Recent Gold Discoveries on Prices" (1856); "An Important but Neglected Branch of Social Science" (1861); "Note on some Emendations (not hitherto suggested) in the text of Shakspeare, with a new explanation of an old passage" (1863); "Glance at the Present State of the Common Goals of Canada; the individual separation of prisoners (with shortened sentences), recommended on moral and economic grounds" (1864); "Earth Sewage versus Water Sewage", and even a pamphlet on militia training in schools, though he himself did not enjoy "playing at soldiers."

Her summers were filled with constant riding parties and picnics, including 'a never-to-be-forgotten adventure: Bark canoes paddled by Indians through five miles (8 km) of rapids', whilst on a visit to cousins at Hawkesbury, Ontario on the Ottawa River.

Unlike Fanny, who was sadly self-centred and who also had a lamentable tendency to be fussily over-protective, Edmund was a relaxed, confident parent, never happier than when horsing around 'having a capital time with my chicks' (as when playing battledore and shuttlecocks down the length of the dining room with his seven-year-old son, in his seventies)... His son Coly remembered 'Unlike the typical Victorian father he never ordered me to do anything, when he wanted something done, one knew that it should be done... At times the confusion made by small children must have been trying, but he never lost his temper or showed irritation.