John Meres was the second son (but main devisee – his elder brother Thomas was disinherited) of Sir Thomas Meres, a Lincolnshire gentleman who for many years was Member of Parliament for Lincoln and Anne de la Fontaine, daughter and heiress of Erasmus de la Fontaine of Kirby Bellars, Leicestershire.

[1] He was educated at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, studied law at the Inner Temple and was called to the bar in 1700.

[2] He was author in 1720 of The Equity of Parliaments and Publick Faith vindicated, in answer to [Sir Richard Steele's] Crisis of Property, and addressed to the Annuitants .

[5] That company was originally concerned in water supply, but had in 1719 and 1720 bought various estates (mainly in Scotland), forfeited due to the Jacobite rising of 1715 for over £308,000.

Following his election, Meres proposed that the company should borrow money from the Charitable Corporation, issuing bonds to it, but this fell through.