Sir Thomas Reid 1st bart.

Founding partner in Reid, Irving (q.v.), father of Sir John Rae Reid and George Reid. Originally an East India Co. merchant whose firm appears to have gravitated increasingly towards the slave-economy in the Caribbean and then Mauritius.

1. Sir Thomas Reid 1st bart. (1762-1824), 'East India merchant' and head of Reid Irvine [sic] & Co. of Broad Street Buildings is shown by Rubinstein [1824/27] as leaving £300,000. Sir Thomas Reid of Ewell Grove and Graystone Park, Dumfries was a director and sometime Chairman of the East India Co., son of James Reid of Dumfries merchant, who married Elizabeth Goodfellow daughter of John Looker Goodfellow in Feb 1791, and was made a baronet on 10 Nov. 1823. Another son, George, was born 1800.

2. Will of Sir Thomas Reid of Broad Street Buildings [made in 1822] proved 01/04/1824. He left monetary legacies including £15,000 to his daughter Harriet Lempriere; and £3000 to his grandson Charles Sandford and £5000 to his grandson Thomas Sandford saying 'I make the above mentioned distribution between them my two grandsons because of the West India property entailed upon the former.' He left his Ewell and Dumfries-shire property to his son John Rae Reid (the former subject to the life-interest of his wife, to whom he also left £2500 p.a.), and his property at Woodmansterne to his son George. In a codicil he said that his assets had expanded and he increased the monetary legacies to his brother Joseph, his daughter Harriet Lempriere and his grandson Charles Sandford.

1. William D. Rubinstein, Who were the rich? A biographical dictionary of British wealth-holders Volume One 1809-1839 (London, Social Affairs Unit, 2009), 1824/27

2. PROB 11/1684/11.