Sir George Houston Reid (25 February 1845 – 12 September 1918) was a Scottish-born Australian and British politician, diplomat, and barrister who served as the fourth prime minister of Australia from 1904 to 1905.

He held office as the leader of the Free Trade Party, previously serving as the 12th premier of New South Wales from 1894 to 1899,[1] and later as the high commissioner of Australia to the United Kingdom from 1910 to 1916.

They initially settled in Melbourne, but moved to Sydney when Reid was 13, at which point he left school and began working as a clerk.

Despite never winning majority government, Reid was able to pass a number of domestic reforms concerning the civil service and public finances.

At the 1906 election, Reid secured the most votes in the Australian House of Representatives and the equal-most seats, but was well short of a majority and could not form a government.

[2] In April 1845, Reid and his family moved to Liverpool, England, where his father had been appointed minister of an expatriate Presbyterian congregation.

He received a classical education, and in later life recalled that he had "no appetite for that wide range of metaphysical propositions which juveniles were expected to comprehend"; he found Greek a "lazy horror".

[6] He left school aged about 13, when the family settled in Sydney, and began working as a junior clerk in a merchant's counting house.

[7] At the age of 15, he joined the debating society at the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, and according to his autobiography, "a more crude novice than he had never begun the practise of public speaking".

[7] In 1864, Reid joined the New South Wales Civil Service as an assistant accountant in the Colonial Treasury, with an annual salary of £200.

[10] In one particular incident his quick wit and affinity for humour were demonstrated when a heckler pointed to his ample paunch and exclaimed "What are you going to call it, George?"

Alfred Deakin detested Reid, describing him as "inordinately vain and resolutely selfish"[11] and their cold relationship would affect both their later careers.

The new premier, Alexander Stuart, offered Reid the position of Colonial Treasurer in January 1883, but he thought it wiser to accept the junior office of Minister of Public Instruction.

He managed to form his party into a coherent group although it "ran the whole gamut from conservative Sydney merchants through middle-class intellectuals to reformers who wished to replace indirect by direct taxation for social reasons.

"[6] At the 1894 election Reid made the establishment of a real free trade tariff with a system of direct taxation the main item of his policy, and had a great victory.

[8] At an early stage of the session, Parkes pressed the question of federation, and in response Reid invited the premiers of the other colonies to meet in conference on 29 January 1895.

Reid obtained a dissolution, was victorious at the polls, and heavily defeated Parkes for the new single-member electoral district of Sydney-King.

Other acts dealt with the control of inland waters, and much needed legislation relating to public health, factories, and mining, was also passed.

Reid supported the federation of the Australian colonies, but since the campaign was led by his Protectionist opponent Edmund Barton he did not take a leading role.

He was dissatisfied by the draft constitution, especially the power of a Senate, elected on the basis of States rather than population, to reject money bills.

At the Sydney and Melbourne sessions of the Convention in 1897 and 1898, Reid moved amendments based on those comments, covertly obtaining several concessions to British wishes.

"A bizarre combination of the Labor Party, protectionists, Federation enthusiasts and die-hard anti-Federation free traders" censured Reid for paying the expenses of John Neild who had been commissioned to report on old-age pensions, prior to parliamentary approval.

[6] By this time Reid had grown extremely overweight and sported a walrus moustache and a monocle, but his buffoonish image concealed a shrewd political brain.

[6][8] On 18 August 1903, Reid resigned (the first member of the House of Representatives to do so) and challenged the government to oppose his re-election on the issue of its refusal to accept a system of equal electoral districts.

[21] He was the only person in Australian federal parliamentary history to win back his seat at a by-election triggered by his own resignation, until John Alexander in 2017.

At the 1903 election, the Free Trade Party won 24 seats, with the Labor vote increasing mainly at the expense of the Protectionists.

Reid did not have a majority in either House, and he knew it would be only a matter of time before the Protectionists patched up their differences with Labor, so he enjoyed himself in office while he could.

Reid's anti-socialist campaign had nevertheless laid the groundwork for the desired realignment, and liberalism would come to sit on the centre-right of Australian politics.

[6] Reid was extremely popular in Britain, and in 1916, when his term as High Commissioner ended, he was elected unopposed to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom for the seat of St George, Hanover Square as a Unionist candidate, where he acted as a spokesman for the self-governing Dominions in supporting the war effort.

[6] Reid's posthumous reputation suffered from the general acceptance of protectionist policies by other parties, as well as from his buffoonish public image.