Andrew Reid (brewer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Andrew Reid (1751–1841)[1] was a Scottish brewer and distiller. He was High Sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1815.[2]
He was the son of John Reid of Tain (baptised 1721 – 1779) and his wife Mary Ross.[1] He had two brothers, John, a merchant, and David, an officer in the Bengal Army.[3]
Reid spent some of his early life in India;[4] he made a voyage as supercargo on the Prince de Kaunitz, an Indiaman of the Imperial Asiatic Company of Trieste and Antwerp, in the later 1770s.[5] From 1782, when he married, Reid was a partner in the London firm Gildart & Reid with his father-in-law.[6] Andrew and David Reid were associates in the opium trade with the merchant William Fairlie.[7]
Reid became a wine and spirit merchant, and distiller. From 1790 to 1793, when he left, he was the London resident of John Fergusson & Co., in partnership with John Fergusson and Fairlie in India, David Scott and others.[8]
Brewer
In 1793 Reid joined the brewers Meux & Jackson, which came to trade as Meux, Reid & Co.[9] The injection of capital brought by Reid allowed the building of a very large vat, at the firm's Griffin Brewery.[10] Five years later Robert Wigram joined. Working relationships in the firm became strained, when Reid began to suspect that part of the business was being run covertly. Matters came to a head with a chancery case brought by Reid, in 1808, against operations of Henry Meux, son of the founder Richard Meux (died 1813). The court ruled that a hidden distillery was being operated, and had to be sold: it was bought by purchasers from the Reid and Wigram families.[11]
The brewery partnership was reconstituted in 1809, with Henry's younger brother Thomas Meux (1772–1842) representing the Meux family, with John Reid (died 1821)) a partner as well as his brother Andrew, who emerged as senior partner. In 1816 Thomas Meux left, and the firm went on to trade as Reid & Co.[9][10]
Quarrel with William Ross
Reid's mother Mary was the daughter of Andrew Ross, whose grandson William Ross, son of Mary's brother David Ross, was a writer for the East India Company. He became laird of Shandwick. Reid considered that William Ross's attentions paid to his sisters Helen and Charlotte were improper, and challenged Ross to a duel. Ross declined the challenge, on the pretext that Reid was a married man. Reid then arranged for his brother David to return from India, and challenge Ross in his place. A duel between David Reid and William Ross took place at Blackheath in May 1790, in which Ross was fatally wounded.[3]
