George Reid (Australian Politician) - Early Life

Early Life

Reid was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, son of a Church of Scotland minister, migrated to Victoria with his family in 1852. His family was one of many Presbyterian families brought out from Scotland by Rev Dr John Dunmore Lang, with whom his father worked at Scots' Church, Sydney. He was educated at Scotch College, where he said he could "read, write and count fairly well", but had "a lazy horror of Greek" and no appetite for the "wide range of metaphysical propositions" which formed part of the curriculum.

At the age of 13, Reid and his family moved to Sydney, and he obtained a job as a clerk. At the age of 15 he joined the School of Arts Debating Society, and according to his autobiography, a more crude novice than he was never began the practise of public speaking. He became an assistant accountant in the Colonial Treasury in 1864 and rose rapidly and became head of the Attorney-General's department in 1878. In 1875 he had 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. In 1876 he began to study law seriously, which would the independent income necessary to pursue a parliamentary career (given that parliamentary service was unpaid at the time). In 1879, Reid qualified as a barrister.