Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Reed, Edward James
REED, Sir EDWARD JAMES (1830–1906), naval architect and chief constructor of the navy, son of John Reed of Sheerness, was born there on 20 Sept. 1830, and after serving an apprenticeship with a ship-wright in Sheerness dockyard w«is chosen in 1849 to enter the school of mathematics and naval construction which had been established at Portsmouth in 1848 with Dr. John Woolley [q. v.] as its principal. After passing through the school he received in 1852 an appointment as super-numerary draughtsman in the mould loft at Sheemess, but finding his duties, which were of a routine nature and involved no responsibility, irksome, he left the admiralty service in the same year. Reed devoted his leisure at this time to writing poetry, and turned to technical journalism ; in 1853 he was offered and accepted the editorship of the 'Mechanic's Magazine.' In 1854 he submitted to the admiralty a design for a fast armour-clad frigate, but the need of such a type was not yet admitted and the design was refused. At the end of 1859 John Scott Russell [q. v.] called together a small body of naval architects, of whom Reed was one, in order to attempt the foundation of a technical society. The effort was immediately successful, and the Institution of Naval Architects was established early in 1860, Reed, who had been organising secretary from the first, being permanently appointed to the secretaryship. In 1862 he submitted to the admiralty designs for the conversion of wooden men-of-war into armour-clads on the belt and battery system, and was encouraged to proceed. The conversion of three ships was put in hand and carried out under Reed's supervision, and before their completion he was offered and accepted, in 1863, the post of chief constructor of the navy. With this appointment a new epoch of naval construction began. The earliest ironclads were very long and unhandy ships, mounting all their guns on the broadside. Reed's object was to produce shorter ships of greater handiness, and to develop their end-on fire without sacrificing their weight of broadside. The battle between guns and armour had already begun, and the demand on the one part for heavier armour and on the other for larger guns was insistent. The Bellerophon, the first ship designed by Reed after he took office, was typical of many others that followed, and marked a great advance towards the realisation of the desired qualities. Launched in May 1865, she was a high freeboard ship, fully rigged as then seemed necessary to seamen; she was protected by a complete belt at the waterline, and amidships rose an armoured citadel enclosing the main battery and covering the vitals of the ship. An attempt to gain end-on fire was made by mounting a smaller battery behind armour in the bows, but in later ships this expedient was improved on by the introduction of recessed ports for the guns at the corners of the central battery. Structurally also the Bellerophon was an important ship, for in her Reed introduced a new system of framing, known as the longitudinal and bracket-frame system, which was better suited than the old method to the use of iron, which was still quite a novel material for the hulls of men-of-war.
At the same time an entirely different type of armoured ship was advancing in favour. This was the low freeboard monitor, with its heavy guns mounted in turrets, a type which had done well in the peculiar circumstances of the American civil war. Reed built several ships of this type, all of them in the main similar to the Glatton; but he fought strenuously against the idea of building large masted monitors as sea-going ships. He held, and indeed proved, that the low freeboard monitor would be dangerously lacking in stability under sail, and at the time when the Captain was building to the plans of Capt. Cowper Phipps Coles [q. v.], he put forward a design for a large seagoing monitor which should be entirely mastless. This was the Devastation, a ship whose design exercised a greater influence on the course of naval architecture perhaps than any other. Reed's plans for the ship, which was laid down in Nov. 1869, were modified in some, as he thought, important particulars, and, owing to a failure to agree with the admiralty on questions connected with the construction of turret ships, he resigned office in July 1870. The report of the committee on designs which sat after the loss of the Captain (7 Sept. 1870) was in many respects a justification of Reed's views, and directly reassured public opinion as to the safety of the Devastation. On resigning from the admiralty he joined Sir Joseph Whitworth [q. v.] at his ordnance works at Manchester; in 1871 he became chairman of Earl's Company, Hull, and in the same year began practice as a naval architect in London. He designed ships for several foreign navies, including those of Turkey, Japan, Germany, Chili, and Brazil, and of these three, the Neptune in 1877, and the sister ships Swiftsure and Triumph in 1903, were bought into the royal navy. In Oct. 1878 he visited Japan at the invitation of the imperial government. He was also consulting naval engineer to the Indian government and to the crown colonies. Reed was a keen advocate of technical education, and while at the admiralty used his influence in favour of the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, which was established in 1864. It was also in great measure due to his appreciation of the value of the work, and to his recommendation of it, that the support of the admiralty was given to William Froude [q. v.] in his model-experiments on the resistance and propulsion of ships. In 1876 he was elected a fellow by the Royal Society; he had received the C.B. in 1868, and was advanced to the K.C.B. in 1880, besides which he held several foreign decorations. From 1865 to 1905 he was a vice-president of the Institution of Naval Architects, and in addition was an active member of other technical societies.
In 1873 Reed attempted unsuccessfully to enter parliament as liberal candidate for Hull, and in the following year was returned as member for the Pembroke boroughs. From the general election of 1880 until 1895, when he was defeated, he sat for Cardiff, and was a lord of the treasury in the short Gladstonian administration of 1886. In 1900 he was again returned for Cardiff, but did not seek re-election in 1905. He served on several important parliamentary committees, and was chairman of the load-line committee of 1884, and of the manning of ships committee of 1894. He was for many years a J. P. for Glamorgan.
Reed's contributions both to general and to technical literature were numerous. His published volumes include 'Corona, and other Poems' (12mo, 1857); 'Letters from Russia in 1875' (first printed in 'The Times' 1876); ' Japan, its History, Traditions, and Religions : with a Narrative of a Visit in 1879' (2 vols. 1880); and a further volume of 'Poems' (1902). In 1860 he became editor of the 'Transactions of the Institute of Naval Architects,' to which he continued to contribute to the end of his life, his papers in vols. iv. to x., issued while he was chief constructor, being of especial interest. In 1869 he wrote 'Our Ironclad Ships,' which was in great measure a vindication of his policy; and in the same year 'Shipbuilding in Iron and Steel,' for several years the standard treatise on the subject. In 1868 and 1871 he contributed papers on the construction of ironclad ships to the 'Philosophical Transactions'; and in 1871 wrote 'Our Naval Coast Defences.' In 1872 he founded a quarterly named 'Naval Science,' many articles in which were from his pen; he continued it till 1875. His 'Treatise on the Stability of Ships' was published in 1884, and 'Modern Ships of War,' in writing which he had Admiral E. Simpson as a collaborator, in 1888. He was in addition a frequent contributor to 'The Times' and other periodicals, and took an ardent part in many controversies on technical subjects. He died in London on 30 Nov. 1906, and was buried at Putney Vale cemetery.
Reed married in 1851 Rosetta, eldest daughter of Nathaniel Barnaby of Sheerness, and sister of Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, who succeeded him as chief constructor in 1870. Edward Tennyson Reed (b. 1860), for many years an artist on the staff of 'Punch,' is his only son.
A painted portrait by Miss Ethel Mortlock, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1886, was presented by the engineer officers of the royal navy to Lady Reed. A cartoon portrait was published in 'Vanity Fair' for 1875, and a photogravure portrait is prefixed to the 'Transactions of the Institute of Naval Architects' for 1907.
[Trans. Inst. Nav. Architects, xlix. 313; Proc. Inst, of Civil Engineers, clxviii. pt. ii.; The Times, 1 Dec. 1906; Reed's own works.]