Henry Reed (merchant)

For other people named Henry Reed, see Henry Reed (disambiguation).

Henry Reed
Born	28 December 1806 Doncaster, England
Died	10 October 1880 Mount Pleasant, Tasmania
Education	Apprentice
Occupation(s)	Merchant, landowner, philanthropist and evangelist
Spouse(s)	Maria Susanna Grubb (1st), Margaret Sayres Elizabeth Frith (2nd)
Children	11 with first wife, 5 with second
Parent(s)	Samuel Reed and Mary Reed née Rockliff
Relatives	Hudson Fysh, John Reed, Cynthia Nolan.

Henry Reed (28 December 1806 – 10 October 1880) was an English landowner, shipowner, merchant, philanthropist and evangelist.

Life and work

Later life

Reed's wife died in 1860; she had borne him eleven children. In 1863 he married Margaret Sayres Elizabeth Frith of Enniskillen, Ireland, an ardent church worker, by whom he had five children. He helped William Booth with money and advice in the difficult formative years of the Salvation Army. Generous gifts were also made to other evangelical work such as the China Inland Mission and the East London Christian Mission. He compiled The Pioneer Hymn Book (London, 1870) and published two tracts, 'Be filled with the spirit' and 'Incidents in an eventful life', Dunorlan Tracts, 1-2 (London, 1873).

In April 1873, with his family and attendants, he sailed for Launceston where he bought and made Mount Pleasant the finest house in northern Tasmania and developed Wesley Dale. In 1875 he helped Rev. George Brown to establish the New Guinea Mission and bought for it the steam launch Henry Reed. In New Britain Brown named Henry Reed Bay in his honour. In Launceston he bought Parr's Hotel in Wellington Street in order to replace it with a mission church, which was completed in 1885 after his death as the Henry Reed Memorial Christian Mission Church, as were the nearby Dunorlan Cottages to provide free housing for elderly indigent women.

References

• Fysh, Wilmot Hudson Jr. (1973). Henry Reed: Van Diemen's Land Pioneer. Cat and Fiddle Press.
• Fysh, Wilmot Hudson Jr. (1967). 'Reed, Henry (1806-1880)' Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol 2. Melbourne University Press.
• Reed, Margaret S.E. (c. 1881). Henry Reed An Eventful Life devoted to God and man by his Widow. London: Morgan and Scott.