FROM DOCKYARD APPRENTICE TO NAVAL CONSTRUCTOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13390, 19 January 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

FROM DOCKYARD A PPRENTICE TO NAVAL CONSTRUCTOR.

Sir Kiwahd Rkki>, K.C.8.. formerly Chief Constructor to the navy, whose death has ocnirved in bis 77tli year, was a manysided mail, and began life as a- dockyard apprentice at Sheerness. Best known as a. builder of warships, he was also a keen politician, and a writer, not- only of technical subjects, but of fiction and verso. Up designed some of the earliest ironclads for the Japanese navy, and later, as Chief Constructor to the British Navy, introduced several new and powerful types of vessels. Mr. K. T. Reed, the brilliant caricaturist of Punch, is bis only son. Sir Edward was created a. K.C.B. in 1860, and received many honours from foreign Covemments. kekuskii a minor tost oi-tekkd by sir. GLADSTONE. A story is (old of a, stormy interview between Sit Edward Heed and Mr. Gladstone, when, to his mortification, he discovered that his beloved lender could offer him nothing better than a Junior Lordship of* the Treasury. It used to be said that ■when Ml', for Cardiff he Mould not suffer a Minister or an ex-Minister of Cabinet rank to poach on his preserves, in other words, to visit Cardiff, even though the object was lie edification of his own constituents, and their confirmation in the Liberal faitfl.