In Their Own Words

In early 1839, Mr Patrick Reid Esq., his wife Agnes, and their eight children left Glasgow to make the long journey by sea to Australia. Eventually disembarking in Melbourne, Patrick wasted no time in erecting his prefabricated home on a prime block of land in Bourke Street and setting about the business of establishing his family in these strangely unfamiliar surroundings. So started a life in the new colony, a life of adventure, hardship, and determination. Above all, Patrick Reid’s life was one of influence. The succeeding generation of Reids left a wonderful legacy of stories, many told in their own hands, their own writings, of day to day life in those formative years of settlement in Melbourne. Author Biography: Dr David Hay is a fourth generation grandson of Agnes and Patrick Reid’s eldest son, Robert, whose words, along with those of his siblings, are the subject of this book. David’s maternal grandmother, Irene Harriet Frances Parr-Smith, was the second of five daughters born out of the first marriage of Robert’s second daughter, Harriet Catherine Reid. David is just as comfortable writing scientific research papers as he is with documenting his geneological research, having spent a career as a scientist with Australia’s leading government research organization, CSIRO. Nevertheless, he has derived a great deal of pleasure researching and documenting the history of his forebears, particularly those who were some of the very earliest settlers in the Colony of Port Phillip, later to become Melbourne.