J. J. Thomson
During the autumn of 1885, Reid, his wife and mother-in-law settled into a rented house in Cambridge, UK, and remained there for the better part of a year. Reid was soon introduced to J. J. Thomson, a young physicist who had recently been appointed to a professorship at Trinity College and made director of the Cavendish Laboratory. This friendship, both professional and personal, was to continue within the Reid and Thomson families up to the present time (2007 CE). J. J. Thomson was 29 at the time they first met; Harry Fielding Reid was 26. Letters exchanged among the various family members reflect an intimacy that was born of their very early years together.