George Houstoun Reid was Australia's fourth Prime Minister. He migrated to Victoria with his family as a child and was educated at Melbourne Academy (which later became Scotch College). When he arrived in Sydney at the age of thirteen, he was placed as a junior clerk in a merchant's counting-house, and in 1864 he became an assistant accountant in the Colonial Treasury. Despite being active in the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts Debating Society and the Young Men's Presbyterian Union, Reid had sufficient time to dedicate to his career, ensuring that he enjoyed a rapid upward trajectory. In 1878 he became head of the Attorney-General's department.
Reid also published political material, including Five Free Trade Essays (1875), a controversial attack on protectionism, and in 1876 An Essay on New South Wales, Mother Colony of the Australias, published as part of the colony's contribution to the United States Centennial Exposition.
On 19 September 1879 Reid was admitted to the Bar, and became a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for the constituency of East Sydney later that year. He was given the public instruction portfolio, and in this capacity established the colony's first high schools, and in October 1883 introduced the bill which inaugurated degree courses for evening students at the University of Sydney. In January 1884 he was unseated, and later returned as a back-bencher in the election of November 1885. A liberal politician, Reid was against restrictions on Chinese immigration, and continued to voice these concerns. As leader of the Free Trade Party from 1891, he became Premier of New South Wales in 1894 and held the position until 1899.
On 5 November 1891 he married Flora Ann Brumby, daughter of a Tasmanian farmer. Despite his growing political statute, or perhaps because of it, in the 1890s Reid's distinctive appearance - overweight, monocled and with a walrus moustache - was frequently lampooned.
Reid entered federal politics in 1901 as the country's first Leader of the Opposition and enjoyed a term as Prime Minister from August 1904 to July 1905. After continuing his eventful political career in Australia for some years, including mounting an anti-socialist campaign against the Government in 1906, he resigned from parliament in 1910 to become Australia's first High Commissioner in London. In 1916, he was elected to the House of Commons.
George Houstoun Reid was the brother of William Fergusson Reid (q.v.)
(Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography Online )
