Flight Lieutenant Robert Alburne REID OBE
No 1 Kite Balloon Section, Royal Naval Air Service

Date of birth: 18th February 1886
Date of death: 24th August 1963

Survived aged 77
Unknown
Robert Alburne Reid was born in Ceylon on the 18th of February 1886 the eldest son of Russell Belfrage Reid, a tea planter, and Margaret Laura (nee Willett) Reid later of 30 Dene Street, Dorking in Surrey.

He was educated at Hazelwood School until July 1899 where he was a member of the Choir. He was a member of the Cricket XI in 1898 and 1899. The school magazine wrote of 1898 his season: - "Another unaccountably disappointing bat, with lots of play in him, but too nervous to do himself justice. A fair but hardly safe field."

Of his 1899 cricket season they wrote: - "Another bad starter, but when once set is as hard a player and fast run getter as any in the team, with a very good forward stroke. Fairly smart in the field."

He was a member of the Football XI in 1898 when the magazine wrote: - "Centre forward, hardly up to this place at present, and he also plays an individual game best, very uncertain but frequently useful."

On leaving the school the magazine wrote: - "....if he grows, should do great things in games and be above the average in work."

He went on to Wellington College where he was in Brougham’s House from September 1899 to 1903. He matriculated for Hertford College Oxford in 1905 but did not complete his studies. Instead, in 1906, he went to Ceylon to work as the manager for a tea planter and was married to Ida Margaret in 1910.

On the 1st of October 1914 he was commissioned as an Honorary 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Marine Light Infantry and was part of the Royal Naval Division at Dunkirk as a motor owner driver, driving armoured cars.

In February 1915 he was training at Roehampton Polo ground as a kite balloon pilot, one of the very first trained in that role. He transferred to the Royal Naval Air Service on the 20th of March 1915 and was appointed to the rank of Sub Lieutenant on the 25th of March 1915 with seniority from the 20th of March. He was posted to No 1 Kite Balloon Section and left the same month from Birkenhead for the Dardanelles on board HMS “Manica”, the first kite balloon ship. He was invalided home from the Dardanelles on the 26th of July 1915 with eye strain and was admitted to hospital at Haslar near Gosport on the 9th of October 1915 with the same condition. He was posted to the air station at Roehampton on the 18th of October 1915 and to the Humber on the 15th of November 1915 to co-ordinate the construction of sheds for air ships. He was promoted to Flight Lieutenant on the 1st of April 1916 and was posted to Air Service Construction (Airships) on the 8th of April. By June 1916 he was stationed at Crystal Palace and transferred to Kirkwall in Scotland in September 1916. On the 30th of June 1917 he was specially recommended for promotion due to his command and knowledge of the internal combustion engine.

He was awarded the Order of the British Empire in the New Years Honours list of the 1st of January 1919.

After the war he became a partner in the company of Reid, Stopford and Ridd, motor engineers, of 14 Clifford Street in London but the partnership was dissolved on the 9th of October 1923. In July 1920 he represented the Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club in the London Amateur Golf foursomes at Addington Links and won the Gold Challenge Scratch Medal at their Autumn Meeting in 1921. He was a scratch golfer and was a founder member of the Old Wellingtonian Golf Society, coming second in their first meeting in 1924. He won the Sussex Amateur Golf Championship at Royal Ashdown Forest in April 1923 and reached the semi final round of the Sussex Amateur and Professional Foursomes played at Royal Ashdown Forest in November 1924.

He moved to Australia in around 1930 where he worked as an engineer and lived at 9 Springfield Road, Darlinghurst, East Sydney.

He died at Victoria Private Hospital, Potts Point, New South Wales in Australia
Went on to Wellington College

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