COLONEL
JAMES ALEXANDER REIDTHE Honorary Colonel and late Colonel Commandant of the 1st L.R.V. was born in Ceylon, 23rd April, 1845, brought to this country in 1851, and educated at Baldernock Parish School. He began his professional career as an apprentice in the office of Messrs. Walker & Carswell, writers, Glasgow, in 1860, and in the same year matriculated at Glasgow University. He studied Latin under Professor William Ramsay, Logic underProfessor Robert Buchanan, and Literature under Professor Nichol. In the Law classes which followed he gained first prize for Conveyancing. He left Messrs. Walker & Carswell to become principal conveyancing clerk successively to Messrs. Strang, Yuill & Keydens, Messrs. Moncrieff, Paterson & Co., and in 1870 Messrs. M'Grigor, Stevenson & Fleming. A year laterMr. Stevenson died and Mr. Fleming retired to become Manager of the Royal Bank. The firm then amalgamated with that of Messrs. C. D. Donald & Sons under the name of M'Grigor, Donald & Co., and Mr. Reid was assumed a partner.
On the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank in 1878 Mr. Reid was closely associated with his senior partner, the late Dr. A. B. M'Grigor, in the management of the liquidation. He is now himself senior partner of the firm. The firm is one of the oldest in the country, having been founded in the eighteenth century by Dr. M'Grigor's grandfather. In 1885 Mr. Reid was appointed Clerk to the Incorporation of Wrights in Glasgow, and four years later he printed for circulation among the members a volume containing the history and much interesting information concerning the body. A second edition was printed in 1900. The esteem in which Mr. Reid is held by the members of his profession was testified on 4th June, 1903 - 43 years to a day from the beginning of his apprenticeship - by his election as Dean of the Faculty of Procurators, a post rendered doubly honourable by the many eminent men who have held it.
His connection with the Volunteers dates from 1864 when he joined the 1st L.R.V. as a private in "D," or the Procurators' Company, then commanded by his partner, Dr. M'Grigor. He himself subsequently became captain of that Company, and rose through the successive ranks till in January, 1890, he became Lieutenant-Colonel and Commanding Officer of the regiment. Into all the work of the Volunteers he entered with enthusiasm, being one of the first to pass the examinations in Tactics, and one of the first Vice-Presidents of the West of Scotland Tactical Society. On the retiral of the late Sir Donald Matheson he became President. For some ten years from 1876 he was captain of the regimental shooting team, which under his care carried off many trophies. He himself several times won the officers' cup of the regiment, and carried off prizes at Wimbledon, Bisley, and the meetings of the West of Scotland Rifle Association. He was mainly instrumental in resuscitating that association in 1881, and took part in its expansion into the Scottish Rifle Association in 1886. He had also a large share in the hard work connected with the erection of the new drill hall and headquarters at Burnbank. He retired from active command of the regiment in 1902, and was gazetted Honorary Colonel in the following year. On that occasion General Sir Archibald Hunter, K.C.B., General Officer commanding in Scotland, in his Memorandum to the War Office, gave the highest testimony to Colonel Reid's achievements.
Colonel Reid is a Mason, and has reached the 32nd degree of the craft. He has twice been R.W.M. of The Prince's Lodge, and was First Principal of "The Prince's" Royal Arch Chapter from 1896 to 1898, doing much hard and good work in both offices. In the field of sport he is a keen shot and a fair angler and with a golf course of his own at Mugdock Castle he has every opportunity of improving his powers at the royal and ancient game. Again and again the grounds at Mugdock have been thrown open for field-day manoeuvres not only of the 1st L.R.V, and of regular regiments, but of an army of golf enthusiasts; and a golf trophy given by Colonel Reid for competition among members of his own Faculty is annually played for there.
Mr. Reid is a life member of The United Service Institute and of The Royal Caledonian Asylum Corporation, as well as The Royal Scottish Hospital, and an ordinary member of the Western, the New. and the art Clubs, Glasgow. He is also on the roll of the Royal Clyde Yacht Club and the Conservative Club, Edinburgh, and of the Perthshire, Stirlingshire, and Aberdeenshire Benevolent Societies, and he is a Director of the Royal Sick Children's Hospital, Glasgow.
He is now LL.D. of the University of Glasgow. This degree he got on 23rd April, 1907 - his 62nd birthday - in company with the Prince and Princess of Wales and other notabilities.