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for the difficult post of Chairman of the Executive Committee of the 

 Great Exhibition of 1851. It has been said that his singular simpli- 

 city of manner and total absence of pretension caused the distin- 

 guished men, with whom he was associated on that occasion, to 

 wonder at first what had led to his selection for the office. They 

 soon discovered, under that simplicity, the patient but genuine en- 

 thusiasm, the varied experience, the calm and even temper, and the 

 devotion to the duties of the moment, whatever they might be, which 

 eminently fitted him for it. It is not too much to say that his 

 judicious arrangements contributed materially to the success of that 

 great undertaking, and they were fitly rewarded by the ribbon of 

 K.C.B., and his appointment to the important military command of 

 Malta. To that island Sir William Reid carried all the unostentatious 

 activity which had distinguished his former governments. In a time 

 of extraordinary difficulty, when Malta becoming an entrepdt of the 

 first importance to the British Army in the East, all its resources 

 were strained to the utmost, he managed to meet every demand, and 

 while he restrained the political excitements of the day, to carry for- 

 ward homely designs for the permanent benefit of the people. Thus 

 he founded a botanical school for the working classes ; he imported 

 improved agricultural implements ; he introduced a new species of 

 the cotton plant, and other seeds adapted to the climate ; he esta- 

 blished barometers in public places to warn the Maltese fishermen of 

 impending gales ; he took in hand the Library of the old Knights 

 of Malta, and by the introduction of modern books, fitted it to be a 

 true public library for a large community. Whatever attainable 

 practical object commended itself to his judgement, that he under- 

 took, with the same quiet determination which in 1851 enabled him 

 to falsify adverse predictions and attain the object to which he was 

 pledged, in the punctual opening of the Great Exhibition. 



The Government of Malta was the last public service of Sir William 

 Reid. He returned home in 1858, having two years previously 

 attained the rank of Major- General, and died after a very short illness 

 on the 3 1st of October. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 

 in 1839, and was appointed Vice-President in 1849. 



Sir William Reid was married to a daughter of the late Mr. Bolland 

 of Clapham. His wife died a few months before him, and he has 

 left five daughters. 



