The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Reid, George Houston
Reid, George Houston, M.L.A., son of the Rev. John Reid, a Presbyterian minister, was born at Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, in 1845, and went out with his parents to Melbourne in 1852. Having removed with the latter to New South Wales five years later, he entered the Civil Service of that colony in 1864, and was appointed Clerk of Correspondence in the Treasury in Sept. 1869, and Secretary to the Attorney-General in 1878. He published "Five Free Trade Essays," which caused his election to the honorary membership of the Cobden Club, and a work entitled "New South Wales, the Mother-Colony of the Australias." He was elected to the Legislative Assembly for East Sydney in 1880, and still retains his seat. Mr. Reid was Minister of Public Instruction to the Stuart Ministry from Jan. 1883 to March 1884, when he resigned. He was admitted to the New South Wales bar in Sept. 1879. At the end of 1891 he was elected leader of the opposition to the Dibbs Government, in succession to Sir Henry Parkes, with whose views in regard to intercolonial federation, as embodied in the Commonwealth Bill, he is by no means in accord either on constitutional or fiscal grounds.