Sir William Reid was a British soldier, administrator and
meteorologistMeteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...
.
He was born at
KinglassieKinglassie is a small village in central Fife, Scotland.It is located 0.5 miles to the southwest of Glenrothes...
,
FifeFife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...
and was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.
He was commissioned lieutenant of engineers in 1809, and in 1810 joined
WellingtonField Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
's army at
LisbonLisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
. In 1815 he participated in
Sir Edward Pakenham'sSir Edward Michael Pakenham GCB , styled The Honourable from his birth until 1813, was an Irish British Army Officer and Politician. He was the brother-in law of the Duke of Wellington, with whom he served in the Peninsular War...
unsuccessful attack on New Orleans and in 1835 commanded a brigade in the
British LegionThe Auxiliary Legion or the British Legion of the Spanish Legion existed from 1835 to 1837. It was a British military force sent to Spain to support the Liberals and Queen Isabella II of Spain against the Carlists in the First Carlist War.-History:Under the Quadruple Alliance Great Britain had...
raised by the
Queen Regent of SpainMaria Christina of the Two Sicilies was Queen consort of Spain and Regent of Spain .-Early years and first marriage:...
. Subsequently Reid served as Governor of the
BermudaBermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
s (1839–1846), of the
British Windward IslandsThe British Windward Islands was a British colony existing between 1833 and 1960 and consisting of the islands of Grenada, St Lucia, Saint Vincent, the Grenadines, Barbados , Tobago , and Dominica, previously included in the...
(1846–1848), and of
MaltaMalta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
(1851–1858). He was knighted in 1851 and promoted to major general five years later.
Reid was sent to the
Leeward IslandsThe Leeward Islands are a group of islands in the West Indies. They are the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain. As a group they start east of Puerto Rico and reach southward to Dominica. They are situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean...
in 1831 to direct the task of reconstruction after the
Great Barbados hurricaneThe Great Barbados hurricane was an intense Category 4 hurricane that left cataclysmic damage across the Caribbean and Louisiana in 1831.A possible Cape Verde hurricane, the storm slammed into Barbados, leveling the capital of Bridgetown on August 10...
. During his two-and-a-half-year stay he became absorbed in trying to understand the nature of
Atlantic hurricaneNorth Atlantic tropical cyclones usually form in the northern hemisphere summer or fall. Tropical cyclones can be categorized by intensity. Tropical storms have one-minute maximum sustained winds of at least 39 mph , while hurricanes have one-minute maximum sustained exceeding 74 mph...
s, which led to a lifelong study of tropical storms. He published
An Attempt to Develop the Law of Storms by Means of Facts (1838; third edition, 1850) and
The Progress of the Development of the Law of Storms and of the Variable Winds (1849).
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in February 1839.
He died at his home in Hyde Park, London.