Donald Reid (politician born 1833)

Donald Reid (16 July 1833 – 7 February 1919) was a Scottish-born 19th-century farmer, landowner, and businessman in Otago, New Zealand. A member of the Otago Provincial Council he was later a Member of Parliament for ten years between 1866 and 1878.

Reid was born in Strathtay in Perthshire, Scotland. He was the son of Donald Reid and Margaret McGregor. His father died in 1844 and his mother remarried. Reid emigrated to New Zealand sailing from London 2 November 1848, arriving in Port Chalmers 4 April 1849 on the Mary 533 tons together with his mother, stepfather, two brothers and elder brother Charles's wife.

His elder brother, Charles Reid (1828-1897), established himself in national financial circles helping to found (in 1874) and running Standard Fire and Marine Insurance Company of New Zealand which rapidly established offices throughout Australia and New Zealand and in London. Hugh Reid (1838-1905), the other brother, became a farmer in North Otago.

Donald also aspired to become a farmer and began by leasing land at Caversham. Before he turned 20 he had purchased a block at Caversham and soon began taking on contract cartage work for the goldfields and grazing cattle on more leased land on the Taieri. He made his first purchase there, in North Taieri, aged 23 and that formed the base from which he was to develop and expand his Salisbury estate where he lived for 56 years. When Donald Reid died in 1919 the estate comprised 6,300 acres freehold and over 2,000 acres of that was on the fertile Taieri Plain. The day-to-day management was left to senior employees, some of the land was in tenant farms.

In spite of his personal success he opposed the buying up of land by pastoralists and estate owners instead becoming a political champion of land seekers, farmers and other small settlers. Reid was instrumental in the passing of 1872 government regulations which assisted the settlement of land still under government ownership by requiring only a small deposit and deferral of further payment until the settler was better established.

Reid represented Taieri on the Otago Provincial Council from 1863 to 1876. In the 1871 election, he unsuccessfully contested the superintendency against James Macandrew.

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