as an assistant surgeon on 6 Feb. 1845, and after serving a commission on board the Rodney in the Channel was appointed in March 1849 to the naval hospital, Plymouth, and received the approval of the Admiralty for his services there during the cholera epidemic of that year. In Jan. 1852 he was appointed as acting surgeon to the Inflexible, sloop, in the Mediterranean; on 12 Sept. 1854 he was promoted to surgeon, and in June 1855 appointed to the London, line-of-battle ship, on the same station. In these two ships he served in the Black Sea until the fall of Sevastopol, and received the Crimean and Turkish medals with the Sevastopol clasp, and was also thanked by the commander-in-chief [see Dundas, Sir James Whitley Deans] for his services to the crew of the flagship when stricken with cholera in 1854. In 1856 he took the degree of M.D. at Aberdeen; and, after serving for a short time in the flagship at Devonport, was appointed in April 1857 to the Belleisle, hospital ship, on board which he continued during the China war of 1857–9, for which he received the medal. In Jan. 1860 he was appointed to the Nile, of 90 guns, and served in her for four years on the North American station, after which he went to Haslar hospital until promoted to staff surgeon on 6 Sept. 1866. After a year's further service in the Mediterranean, he was in June 1870 placed in charge of the naval hospital at Haulbowline, where he remained till 1873. During the concluding months of the Ashanti war (see Hewett, Sir William] he served on board the Nebraska, hospital ship, at Cape Coast Castle, for which he was mentioned in despatches, received the medal and, on 31 March 1874, was promoted to deputy inspector-general. In that rank he had charge of the medical establishments at Bermuda from 1875 to 1878, when he was appointed to Haslar hospital. On 25 Feb. 1880 he was promoted to be inspector-general and was appointed medical director-general of the navy. This post he held till his retirement eight years later, when the board of admiralty recorded their high opinion of his zeal and efficiency. He became an honorary physician to Queen Victoria in Feb. 1881 and to King Edward VII in 1901, was awarded the K.C.B. (military) on 24 Nov. 1882, and had the honorary degree of LL.D. conferred upon him by Edinburgh University at its tercentenary in 1884. A medical good service pension was awarded him in July 1888.
Reid died in London on 24 Feb. 1909, and was buried at Bramshaw, Hampshire. He married, on 6 July 1863, Georgina, daughter of C. J. Hill of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
[The Times, 26 Feb. 1909; Men and Women of the Time, 1899; R.N. List.]
REID, Sir ROBERT GILLESPIE (1842–1908), Canadian contractor and financier, born of Lowland parents at Coupar Angus, Perthshire, in 1842, received his early education there and was trained as a bridge-builder by an uncle. Entering into business on his own account, he made some successful contracts and with the proceeds emigrated to Australia in 1865. In Australia he engaged principally in gold mining and the construction of public works. In 1871 Reid went to America, and ultimately settled at Montreal. He at once made a reputation by building the International Bridge across the Niagara river at Buffalo. He was subsequently entrusted with the construction of several bridges between Montreal and Ottawa on the line of the Montreal, Quebec, and Ottawa railway, which now forms part of the Canadian Pacific system. Another international bridge across the Rio Grande between Texas and Mexico greatly extended his fame. Other great bridges of his construction span the Colorado at Austin, Texas, the 'Soo' at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and the Delaware at the famous Water Gap in Pennsylvania. In 1886 the directors of the Canadian Pacific railway, without inviting tenders, commissioned him to undertake the Lachine Bridge across the St. Lawrence above Montreal, three-quarters of a mile long. The work was completed in six months. The bridge across Grand Narrows, Cape Breton, was built for the Canadian government in connection with the railway in that island in 1889-90. Reid was as active and efficient in the building of railways as in the construction of bridges. The difficult Jackfish Bay section of the Canadian Pacific railway on the rough and almost impassable northern coast of Lake Superior was his work. Newfoundland, with which Reid's association began in 1890, was the scene of his most varied activities. He first contracted for the building of the Hall Bay railway (260 miles), which he undertook in 1890 and completed in 1893. He then contracted to build for the Newfoundland government the Western railway from Whitbourne Junction to Port-aux-Basques (500 miles). This was accomplished in 1897. The contract gave Reid the right to operate the whole road for ten years
