Free Settler or Felon
Convict and Colonial History




David Reid R. N.,

Convict Ship Surgeon-Superintendent


Date of Seniority Royal Navy 8 April 1799


David Reid was entered in the Navy List of Medical Officers in 1814.

Surgeon Superintendent

He was employed as Surgeon Superintendent on three convict ship voyages to Australia:

Baring to NSW in 1815

Baring to NSW in 1819

Providence to VDL and NSW in 1822


The Baring departed England on 20 April 1815, called at Madeira and Rio de Janeiro and arrived in Port Jackson on 17 September 1815 with male 298 prisoners.

The Baring on her second voyage in 1819 departed England in December 1819 and arrived in Port Jackson on 26 June 1819.

The Providence arrived in Port Jackson via Hobart on 7th January 1822. David Reid departed the colony on the Tiger in March 1822

Settler

David Reid returned to Australia on the Mariner with his family in 1823 and settled in Australia. He was on the List of Surgeons of the Royal Navy unfit for service in 1841

Death

David Reid died in 1840. The Colonist reported his death - At Inveraray Park, on the 6th instant, David Reid, Esq., J.P., Surgeon in the Royal Navy, in the 65th year of his age. He had been one of the first settlers, and was the oldest Magistrate in the southern country; his death is a public loss - by it the colony is bereaved of an upright and zealous Magistrate, and society of a truly honest man.

Notes and Links

Below are extracts from the obituaries of David Reid, son of Surgeon David Reid R.N.,

From Albury Banner and Wodonga Express 11 May 1906 -

Mr. David Reid of Moorwatha, who died on Monday morning, was 85 years of age, and almost to the last hour of his life was in possession of the fullest mental and bodily vigour compatible with his advanced years. Taken suddenly ill about 2 o'çlock, he died at 3. Mr. Reid was one of the oldest colonist of New South Wales, and also one of the earliest settlers of the Border districts.

Dr. Reid, his father, was surgeon in the Royal Navy, serving in the early part of the last century in the Bellerephon. At the close of the Peninsular War complaints had been made of the severe mortality on convict ships bound for 'Botany Bay.' At the instance of Governor Macquarie the Transport Board decided to select one of the best naval surgeons to take charge of the next batch of convicts, and Sir William Knighton, Physician of the Fleet, chose Dr. Reid, who accordingly came out in the Baring. The experiment proved successful, and Dr. Reid made several trips, coming out the third time in a vessel called The Providence, laden with female convicts.

Dr. Reid, was then induced by the representations of Governor Macquarie to settle permanently in the colony, and in 1823 he brought out his family, including the subject of this memoir, then a child. Young David was sent to the King's School, Sydney, where he was the school- fellow of many men who have since attained celebrity.

Dr. Reid settled down to pastoral pursuits at Inveraray, near Goulburn, and some 15 years later sent his son to Manaro to deliver a mob of cattle purchased by J. Gardiner, who had just returned from his first trip to Port Phillip Mr. Gardiner, it may be mentioned was one of the first party who took stock overland to Port Phillip, the other members of the quartet being Messrs. Ebden, Joseph Hawdon, and Captain Hepburn - Continue


From Australian Town and Country Journal Wed 16 May 1906 -

Mr. David Reid, whose death at Moorwatha, in the Albury district, was announced in last week's issue, was one of the oldest settlers of southern New South Wales.

An Englishman by birth, Mr. Reid came to Australia in 1823, when he was 2 years of age, and for 83 years faced the varying difficulties of a colonial life.

Mr. Reid's father, Dr. David Reid, was for twenty years a surgeon in the Royal Navy. Subsequently Dr. Reid was selected as medical officer of the convict ship Baring, and on that vessel made five trips to New South Wales After that he retired from the Service, and settled in Australia in 1823.

In the year 1838 the late Mr. Reid left home in search of squatting country, and went across from Monaro to the Murray, which he crossed at what was then known as Hume's crossing. At that time the only people at Albury were Mr. Amos Huon (who afterwards went to Fiji) and two blackboys; but Mr. John Dight (father of Mr. C. H. Dight) was already settled at Bungowannah, and Mr. Ebden had a station at what is now known as Mungabareena. From that district Mr. Reid went on to the Ovens, and eventually decided to take up land about five miles from Wangaratta, taking up an area which extended right away to Yackandandah, and embraced the whole of what was afterwards to become the Ovens and adjacent gold fields.

On settling there, Mr. Reid brought his mother and the other members of the family from Goulburn, and they lived at the new home until 1844. In February of that year he married a niece of Hamilton Hume, the explorer, and made a home for himself about 7 miles from the town of Yackandandah. - Continue


Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, Volume X, January 1819 - December 1822, p. 272