George Reid
Sir George Houston Reid was a Scottish-born Australian politician, diplomat, and barrister who served as the fourth prime minister of Australia from 1904 to 1905. He held office as the leader of the Free Trade Party, previously serving as the 12th premier of New South Wales from 1894 to 1899, and later as the high commissioner of Australia to the United Kingdom from 1910 to 1916.
Reid was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland. He and his family immigrated to Australia when he was young. They initially settled in Melbourne, but moved to Sydney when Reid was 13, at which point he left school and began working as a clerk. He later joined the New South Wales civil service, and rose through the ranks to become secretary of the Attorney-General's Department. Reid was also something of a public intellectual, publishing several works in defence of liberalism and free trade. He began studying law in 1876 and was admitted to the bar in 1879. In 1880, he resigned from the civil service to run for parliament, winning election to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly.
From 1883 to 1884, Reid was Minister of Public Instruction in the government of Alexander Stuart. He joined the Free Trade Party of Henry Parkes in 1887, but refused to serve in Parkes' governments due to personal enmity. When Parkes resigned as party leader in 1891, Reid was elected in his place. He became premier after the 1894 election and remained in office for just over five years. Despite never winning majority government, Reid was able to pass a number of domestic reforms concerning the civil service and public finances. He was an advocate of federation and played a part in drafting the Constitution of Australia, where he became known as a strong defender of his colony's interests. In 1901, he was elected to the new Federal Parliament representing the Division of East Sydney.
Reid retained the leadership of the Free Trade and Liberal Association after federation, and consequently became Australia's first Leader of the Opposition. For the first few years, the Protectionist Party governed with the support of the Australian Labor Party. Alfred Deakin's Protectionist minority government collapsed in April 1904, and he was briefly succeeded by Labor's Chris Watson, who proved unable to govern and resigned after four months. As a result, Reid became prime minister in August 1904, heading yet another minority government. He included four Protectionists in his cabinet, but was unable to achieve much before his government was brought down in July 1905. One notable exception was the passage of the landmark Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904, which dealt with industrial relations.
At the 1906 election, Reid secured the most votes in the Australian House of Representatives and the equal-most seats, but was well short of a majority and could not form a government. He resigned as party leader in 1908, after opposing the formation of the Commonwealth Liberal Party. Reid accepted an appointment as Australia's first High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in 1910, and remained in the position until 1916. He subsequently won election to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, serving until his sudden death two years later.
Early life
Reid was born on 25 February 1845 in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland. He was the fifth of seven children born to Marion and John Reid; he had four older brothers and two younger sisters. He was named after George Houstoun, a former Conservative MP for the Renfrewshire constituency who had died a few years earlier. Reid's father, the son of a farmer, was born in Tarbolton, Ayrshire. At the time of George's birth, he was a minister in the Church of Scotland, which he had joined in 1839 after previously ministering in various secessionist Presbyterian churches; he remained loyal to the established church in the Disruption of 1843. In 1834, he had married the daughter of another minister, Edward Crybbace; she was about nine years his junior.In April 1845, Reid and his family moved to Liverpool, England, where his father had been appointed minister of an expatriate Presbyterian congregation. His two younger sisters were born there. The family struggled financially, and his father made the decision to emigrate to Australia. Reid arrived in Melbourne in May 1852, and his father subsequently led congregations in Essendon and North Melbourne. He moved the family to Sydney in 1858. Reid received his only formal schooling at the Melbourne Academy, now known as Scotch College. He received a classical education, and in later life recalled that he had "no appetite for that wide range of metaphysical propositions which juveniles were expected to comprehend"; he found Greek a "lazy horror". He left school aged about 13, when the family settled in Sydney, and began working as a junior clerk in a merchant's counting house. At the age of 15, he joined the debating society at the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, and according to his autobiography, "a more crude novice than he had never begun the practise of public speaking". In Sydney, Reid's father became a colleague of John Dunmore Lang at the Scots Church, and then from 1862 until his death in 1867 was the minister of the Mariners' Church on George Street. His mother, who died in 1885, was involved in the ragged schools movement. In later life, Reid praised his parents for his good upbringing.
Public service career
In 1864, Reid joined the New South Wales Civil Service as an assistant accountant in the Colonial Treasury, with an annual salary of £200. He was promoted to clerk of correspondence and contracts in 1868, and then chief clerk of correspondence in 1874 on a salary of £400. In 1876, he began to study law seriously, which would provide the independent income necessary to pursue a parliamentary career. He became head of the Attorney-General's Department in 1878. In 1879, Reid qualified as a barrister. He made a name for himself by publishing pamphlets on topical issues. In 1875, he published his Five Essays on Free Trade, which brought him an honorary membership of the Cobden Club, and in 1878 the government published his New South Wales, the Mother Colony of the Australians, for distribution in Europe.Political career
Reid's career was aided by his quick wit and entertaining oratory; he was described as being "perhaps the best platform speaker in the Empire", both amusing and informing his audiences "who flocked to his election meetings as to popular entertainment". In one particular incident his quick wit and affinity for humour were demonstrated when a heckler pointed to his ample paunch and exclaimed "What are you going to call it, George?" to which Reid replied: "If it's a boy, I'll call it after myself. If it's a girl I'll call it Victoria. But if, as I strongly suspect, it's nothing but piss and wind, I'll name it after you." His humour, however, was not universally appreciated. Alfred Deakin detested Reid, describing him as "inordinately vain and resolutely selfish" and their cold relationship would affect both their later careers.Reid was elected top of the poll to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as a member for the four-member electoral district of East Sydney in the 1880 New South Wales colonial election. He was not very active at first, as he was building up his legal practice, although he was concerned to reform the Robertson Land Acts, which had not prevented 96 land holders from controlling eight million acres between them. Henry Parkes and John Robertson attempted to make minor amendments to the land acts but were defeated and at the subsequent election Parkes' party lost many seats.
The new premier, Alexander Stuart, offered Reid the position of Colonial Treasurer in January 1883, but he thought it wiser to accept the junior office of Minister of Public Instruction. He served 14 months in this office and succeeded in passing a much improved Education Act, which included the establishment of the first government high schools in the leading towns, technical schools and the provision of evening lectures at the university.
In February 1884, Reid lost his seat in parliament owing to a technicality; The Elections and Qualifications Committee held that the Governor had already issued five proclamations prior to the appointment of Francis Suttor to the office of Minister of Public Instruction thus both Suttor and his successor Reid were incapable of being validly appointed. At the resulting by-election Reid was defeated by a small majority as a result of the government's financial hardships due to the loss of revenue from the suspension of land sales. In 1885, he was re-elected in East Sydney and took a great part in the free trade or protection issue. He supported Sir Henry Parkes on the free trade side but, when Parkes came into power in 1887, declined a seat in his ministry. Parkes offered him a portfolio two years later and Reid again refused. He did not like Parkes personally and felt he would be unable to work with him. When payment of members of parliament was passed, Reid, who had always opposed it, paid the amount of his salary into the treasury. Reid had become one of Sydney's leading barristers by impressing juries by his cross-examinations and was made a Queen's Counsel in 1898. In May 1891 four free traders, Reid, Jack Want, John Haynes and Jonathan Seaver, voted against the Fifth Parkes ministry in a motion of no confidence, which was only defeated by the casting vote of the Speaker of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. Whilst the government survived the motion, parliament was dissolved on 6 June 1891.
Premier
In September 1891, the Parkes ministry was defeated, the Dibbs government succeeded it, and Parkes retired from the leadership of the Free Trade Party. Reid was elected leader of the opposition in his place. In 1891, he married Florence Ann Brumby, who was 23 years old to his 46. He managed to form his party into a coherent group although it "ran the whole gamut from conservative Sydney merchants through middle-class intellectuals to reformers who wished to replace indirect by direct taxation for social reasons."At the 1894 election Reid made the establishment of a real free trade tariff with a system of direct taxation the main item of his policy, and had a great victory. Edmund Barton and other well-known protectionists lost their seats, Labor was reduced from 30 to 18, and Reid formed his first cabinet. One of his earliest measures was a new lands bill which provided for the division of pastoral leases into two-halves, one of which was to be open to the free selector, while the pastoral lessee got some security of tenure for the other half. Classification of crown lands according to their value was provided for, and the free selector, or his transferee, had to reside on the property.
At an early stage of the session, Parkes pressed the question of federation, and in response Reid invited the premiers of the other colonies to meet in conference on 29 January 1895. This resolved in favour of an elected Australasian Federal Convention, that would draw up a federal constitution, which would then to be subject of a referendum in each colony. Meanwhile, Reid had great trouble in passing his land and income tax bills. When he did get them through the Assembly the New South Wales Legislative Council threw them out. Reid obtained a dissolution, was victorious at the polls, and heavily defeated Parkes for the new single-member electoral district of Sydney-King. He eventually succeeded in passing his acts, which were moderate, but was strenuously opposed by the council, and it was only the fear that the chamber might be swamped with new appointments that eventually wore down the opposition. Reid was also successful in bringing in reforms in the keeping of public accounts and in the civil service generally. Other acts dealt with the control of inland waters, and much needed legislation relating to public health, factories, and mining, was also passed. In five years he achieved more than any of his predecessors.
On four occasions between December 1895 and May 1899 Reid was temporarily appointed to the vacant position of Solicitor General for New South Wales to allow him to deputise for the Attorney General of New South Wales, Jack Want, in his absence. Reid took on the position of Attorney-General in addition to being Premier in the last months of his government.