Born at Hampstead; was first apprenticed to a medical practitioner, then studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he was House Surgeon and one of the first students to live in the residential College over which Sir James Paget (qv) presided as first Warden. He commenced practice in partnership at Dover in 1843. In 1846 he moved to Canterbury, was Surgeon to the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, and took an active part in the medical interests of the City. He was at various times Surgeon to the Canterbury Prison; Hon Secretary and Treasurer of the Canterbury Nurses' Institute; a promoter of the Kent Natural History Society and its Hon Librarian; Local Secretary of the New Sydenham Society; and Assistant Surgeon to the East Kent Militia. Canterbury owed much to Reid for its improved sanitary condition after his "Report on Cholera at Canterbury" in the *Provincial Medical Journal*, 1850, 261. He practised at 12 Lower Bridge Street, and died there at the age of 90 on September 12th, 1911.