# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Reid, George Houstoun

​REID, Sir GEORGE HOUSTOUN 1845–1918), colonial politician, was born at Johnstone, Renfrewshire, 25 February 1845, the son of the Rev. John Reid, a minister of the Church of Scotland. When seven years old he was taken to Australia, and spent his youth in the civil service of New South Wales. Finding this too restricted a field for his ambitions, and attracted to political life by his fervent belief in free trade, he secured in 1879 admission to the colonial bar, and in 1880 was elected to the legislative assembly for East Sydney, which constituency, with a break in 1884–1885, he continued to represent until 1901. His skill in advocacy secured him ere long a large and lucrative practice, and in politics also success was not delayed. He was minister of public instruction from January 1883 to March 1884, and on the fall of Sir Henry Parkes [q.v.] in 1891, he stood out as leader of the opposition with such skill that on 3 August 1894 he attained the premiership of the colony. The general elections of 1895 and 1898 confirmed him in office, his ministry attaining the unprecedented duration of sixty-one months. Useful work was done in re-establishing the financial position, shaken by the banking crisis of 1893; system was introduced in the public accounts, and an effort was made in the Land Act of 1895 to check the aggregation of land in private ownership.
The dominant issue of the time was federation, and on this topic Reid's attitude was ambiguous. In retrospect he regarded his term of office as the period in which, as premier of the senior colony, ​he carried the federation movement to a successful issue, and it was he who proposed at the Hobart Conference of 1895 the resolutions for the summoning of a convention to decide the terms of the federal constitution. But the knowledge that federation would mean the overthrow of free trade, and the fear that it would impose grave financial burdens on New South Wales and injure the importance of Sydney, rapidly cooled his ardour. When the draft constitution finally emerged from the convention, his attitude towards it in a speech at Sydney (28 March 1898) was so critical that it failed to secure at the ensuing referendum the 80,000 votes necessary for its acceptance. Reid used the result in order to obtain concessions at a conference in January 1899, and only then exerted his influence to secure acceptance, on 20 June, of the amended draft.
At this juncture, when Reid might legitimately hope to become the first prime minister of the Commonwealth, sudden disaster befell him through defeat in the assembly on a minor personal issue, and he resigned office on 13 September 1899. In 1901 he entered federal politics as leader of the opposition to the movement for protection, but he found it hard to reconcile professional work in Sydney with attendance at the debates in Melbourne. For a brief period (19 August 1904 to 3 July 1905) the feuds between the followers of Mr. Alfred Deakin [q.v.] and the labour party over the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill enabled him to secure the premiership through alliance with the labour party leader, Mr. Allan McLean. But the coalition rested on no secure basis; Mr. Deakin's attacks proved irresistible, and Reid was reduced to the position of leader of a dwindling fraction of the house of representatives. From this plight he was rescued by the coalition of his supporters with those of Mr. Deakin against Mr. Andrew Fisher's labour administration in 1909 on the issue of naval assistance to the Empire. Co-operation between him and Mr. Deakin in the same government was impossible, but a solution was found by his appointment as the first high commissioner of the Commonwealth in London (1910–1915). The post was the more attractive to Reid as he had already created a favourable impression in England by his speeches in 1897, when he represented New South Wales at Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee celebrations and at the conference of colonial premiers. By temperament in sympathy with liberal opinion in England, he met with the ready support of the imperial government in his efforts to magnify his office and to insist on the importance of the Commonwealth. To official life in London he became so deeply attached that he viewed with unconcealed dread the termination of his service under the Commonwealth, and it was with the utmost satisfaction that he accepted in January 1916 the offer of a seat in the House of Commons for St. George's, Hanover Square. But it was too late for him to adapt himself effectively to the conditions of the House of Commons, or to gain ministerial office. To occupy his energies and serve the allied cause in the European War, he undertook an unofficial mission to the United States; his health suffered severely from the strain of this exertion, and his death, which took place in London on 12 September 1918, was doubtless accelerated in consequence.
Without originality of political conception or great administrative capacity, Reid was able and ready in debate, and unquestionably the best platform orator in Australia in the decade before federation. In England he won just repute as an after-dinner speaker; his fund of amusing anecdotes—often at his own expense—was endless, and his wit was delightful. Amid the acerbities of colonial politics he preserved a remarkable measure of good humour and courtesy, and his genuine kindness of heart more than compensated for a natural vanity, which exhibited itself in the eagerness with which—unlike Mr. Deakin, his chief rival—he accepted not merely a privy councillorship in 1897, but also the more formal honours of K.C.M.G. (1909), G.C.M.G. (1911), and G.C.B. (1916); his action in this regard he justified by the value which he placed on the Crown as the symbol of imperial unity, although he was strongly opposed to any scheme of imperial federation.
Reid married in 1891 Flora, daughter of John Bromby, of Thornton, Cressy, Tasmania.
[Reid, My Reminiscences, 1917; J. Quick and R. R. Garran, Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, 1901; H. G. Turner, First Decade of the Australian Commonwealth, 1911; B. R. Wise, Making of the Australian Commonwealth, 1913; New South Wales and Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates; personal knowledge. Portrait, Royal Academy Pictures, 1916.]
A. B. K.