Reid, John

1721-1807

Scotch musical amateur; chiefly distinguished for his bequest to Edinburgh University for the purpose of founding and maintaining a professorship of music there. Born at Straloch, Perthshire, and was a student at the University mentioned. In 1745 he was a lieutenant in the army, later becoming a general. In his will he provided that after the death of his daughter all his property should go to the University, including his music books, and directed that an annual concert should be given on his birthday, and at this concert some pieces of his own composition should be performed by the band. This, says James D. Brown, was to "show the style of music that prevailed about the middle of the Eighteenth Century."