David Meredith — full name David Lloyd Meredith — was born on 30 October 1933 in London, England, to Welsh parents. He was raised in London and educated at Ealing County Grammar School, and though he came from a Welsh family background, he was not himself born in Wales; this entry corrects the site's earlier, simpler claim that he was "born in Wales". He trained early on as an osteopath, a profession he continued to practise alongside acting throughout his life, and died in Chester on 22 October 2008, aged 74.
Meredith made his London stage debut with the Old Vic company in 1960, appearing in Franco Zeffirelli's productions of Romeo and Juliet, alongside a young Judi Dench, and She Stoops to Conquer. He went on to join the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing roles including Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and later worked with Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Theatre Company on productions of Hamlet, As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing.
On television, he was best known for playing Sergeant, later Detective Sergeant, Bob Evans in the BBC police drama Softly Softly: Task Force, a role he held for the show's entire run from 1969 to 1976. He also appeared as Hawkins, a gamekeeper, in a 1980 episode of the sitcom To the Manor Born. On film, he played the Governor of Harfleur in Kenneth Branagh's 1989 adaptation of Henry V, and appeared as Jones the JP in his final film role, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995).
Meredith had a particular affinity for Welsh literature, and performed multiple roles in Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood across various stage revivals and recordings over the years — reportedly more often than any other actor. He was married to Daphne, and the couple had two sons.