Accordingly in 1839, after the daughter's death, the chair of music was founded. The fund had increased by that time to about 70,000l.; but the university authorities largely availed themselves of the discretion given to them in the application of the money. They diverted the bulk of it from the primary object to the further uses mentioned in Reid's will, and they fixed the professor's salary at 300l., the minimum which he had named. John Thomson (1805–1841) [q. v.] was the first professor, and Sir Henry Bishop the second (from 1841 to 1844). The salary was increased after an agitation by Mr. John Donaldson, who became professor in 1845.
Reid directed in his will that a concert should be annually given on his birthday, and should begin with pieces of his own composition. A subsequent ordinance of the Scottish Universities Commission abolished this concert, but directed that one of the series of winter concerts should, if possible, take place on Reid's birthday, and include some of his compositions.
The university of Edinburgh has two anonymous portraits of Reid—one taken as a young man, the other in later life. In the latter he holds a flute.
[Irving's Book of Eminent Scotsmen; Douglas's Baronage of Scotland; Stewart's Highlanders; Hist. Rec. of the 42nd and 88th Regiments; Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac; Grove's Dict. of Music and Musicians; and, especially, information supplied by Fr. Niecks, esq., the present Reid professor of music.]
REID, JOHN, M.D. (1776–1822), physician, was born at Leicester in 1776, and after education at the school of Mr. Holland, a dissenting minister, went to the Hackney nonconformist academy for five years. He then studied medicine at Edinburgh, and there graduated M.D. on 12 Sept. 1798, reading a thesis ‘De Insania.’ He became a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London on 25 June 1804. He published in 1801 a translation from the French, ‘An Account of the Savage Youth of Avignon;’ in 1806 ‘A Treatise of Consumption,’ in which he states his belief that tubercles are inflammatory products, and have no real resemblance to caseous disease of lymphatic glands; and in 1816 ‘Essays on Insanity,’ of which an enlarged edition appeared in 1821 as ‘Essays on Hypochondriasis and other Nervous Affections.’ He generally writes with good sense, and relates a few interesting cases of mental disease, but has added nothing to medical knowledge. He was a contributor of medical reports to the ‘Old Monthly Magazine,’ gave lectures on the theory and practice of medicine, and was physician to the Finsbury Dispensary. His house was in Grenville Street, Brunswick Square, and he died there on 2 July 1822.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 14; Works.]
REID, JOHN (1808–1841?), compiler of ‘Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica,’ born at Paisley on 2 April 1808, was the second son of John Reid, M.D., by Jean M'Gavin, sister to William M'Gavin [q. v.] of Glasgow. After receiving an education mostly from his father, he was apprenticed to a firm of booksellers in Glasgow. At the end of his apprenticeship he went to London, and entered the service of Messrs. Black & Young, foreign publishers. In a few years he again returned to Glasgow, where he started as bookseller and publisher on his own account. While studying Gaelic in 1825, a friend asked Reid to catalogue his Gaelic books for him. This led to the compilation of the ‘Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica,’ the manuscript of which accidentally fell into the hands of Sir John Sinclair, bart. [q. v.], in 1827. By him it was brought under the notice of the Highland Society of London, from which it received a premium in 1831. It was published in Glasgow by Reid himself in 1832.
While in Glasgow Reid took considerable interest in social reform and politics. He was a particular friend to the Polish exiles then in this country, and he was one of those active politicians who desired the Earl of Durham to lead a reconstructed radical party in parliament. With this end in view he published in 1835 a sketch of the earl's political career. Owing to his interest in public affairs he had a wide circle of friends, including Lord Dudley Stuart, Sir Daniel Macnee [q. v.] the painter, William Weir, who was latterly editor of the ‘Daily News,’ and William Motherwell [q. v.] the poet.
Reid was fond of travelling, and knew the continent well. In 1838 he went to Turkey on a prolonged visit, and in 1840 published his impressions of the country in ‘Turkey and the Turks, being the Present State of the Ottoman Empire,’ London, 1840. That year he gave up his publishing business in Glasgow and went to Hong Kong to edit an English journal and prepare a Chinese dictionary. He died at Hong Kong in either 1841 or 1842. He married, in 1836, Anne, daughter of Captain John McLaren, High Laws, Berwick, by whom he had one daughter.
Besides the works noticed and contributions to periodical literature, Reid published ‘Illustrations of Social Depravity,’ a series
