Reid, Richard Tuohill

Reid, Richard Tuohill (1823–83), lawyer and academic, was the only surviving son of Herbert Reid, a Killarney merchant, and Catherine Reid (née Tuohill). His father died young and he entered TCD as a sizar in 1841; he was admitted as a student to the Middle Temple in 1844 and as barrister at law at the King's Inns in 1852. He was called to the Irish bar in 1853 but left soon after to take up a post as Perry professor in jurisprudence at Elphinstone College, Bombay. He was among the first to train Indians in the principles of English law, and published a set of nine lectures as Family rights, considered as a branch of general and comparative jurisprudence (1856). Elphinstone, with Poona, was one of two constituent colleges of the University of Bombay and was richly endowed with public money in an attempt to create a native Indian class trained to imperial rule. The university granted degrees from 1860, and Reid held his chair there for more than twenty-five years. He eventually presided over the government law school, which had more than seventy students on its rolls by 1870. He was also coroner for Bombay and editor from 1864 of its Reports from the high court. After leaving India, he died in Rome on 11 February 1883, bequeathing £25,000 in trust to Irish education. The Reid professorship in penal legislation was established at TCD in 1888 and the Reid prize, to qualify for two years' training at Dublin's Marlborough St. training college, was first competed for in 1890. His bequest also provided for two exhibitions at TCD to enable national schoolteachers from Kerry to obtain their BA degree.