Charles Reid (14 January 1864 - 25 October 1909) was a

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

international

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

player.Bath, p37

Rugby Union career

Amateur career

Reid attended

Edinburgh Academy The Edinburgh Academy is an independent day school in Edinburgh, Scotland, which was opened in 1824. The original building, on Henderson Row in the city's New Town, is now part of the Senior School. The Junior School is located on Arboretum Ro ...

, and played

for the Edinburgh Academicals . He was still a schoolboy of the academy when first capped by

. In the match against in 1881, he played against his classmate Frank Wright at

Raeburn Place Raeburn Place is the main street of the suburb of Stockbridge, Edinburgh, Scotland, and the name of the playing fields there. Rugby The first ever international rugby football game was played on the playing fields at Raeburn Place on 27 Ma ...

. Frank Wright was also seventeen at the time but - as a boarder from

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

- represented the England side. At the end of the match, both of the boys were carried on the shoulders of their fans back to

. He acquired a nickname of Hippo at the school; this does not refer to his being like a

hippopotamus The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extan ...

, but the fact that he didn't know the word for a horse, when asked once in an

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

class at the

.Bath, p101 After his schooling, he still played for Edinburgh Academicals. He later played for Perthshire.

Provincial career

He played for Edinburgh District in the inter-city match against Glasgow District in 1880. He later turned out for East of Scotland District that same season in their match against West of Scotland District in 1881.

International career

He was capped twenty-one times for between 1881 and 1888. Reid vies with

Ninian Finlay Ninian Jamieson Finlay (31 January 1858 – 7 March 1936Godwin, p147) was a Scottish international rugby player.Bath, p136 He was capped nine times for between 1875–81, and is generally considered to be the youngest player ever to be capped ...

for the title of the youngest player ever to be capped for - he was seventeen years and thirty six days old when he was capped against on 19 February 1881; however, Reid had lived through an extra leap year day, when he was capped in 1881, so Finlay generally gets that title.Bath, p65 He played at second row/lock.Bath, p137 As

Allan Massie Allan Johnstone Massie (born 16 October 1938) is a Scottish journalist, columnist, sports writer and novelist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has lived in the Scottish Borders for the last 25 years, and now lives in Se ...

says, :"''Charles Reid's physique would never have appeared inadequate for any forward position; he was bigger than 's Tom Reid who was the biggest and heaviest forward the British Lions took to South Africa in 1955, and more or less the same height and weight as the great

Willie John McBride William James McBride, CBE, better known as Willie John McBride (born 6 June 1940) is a former rugby union footballer who played as a lock for Ireland and the British and Irish Lions. He played 63 Tests for Ireland including eleven as captain, ...

.''" Reid was 15 to 16 stone in weight, and 6 ft 3in.Massie, p7 The first historian of Scottish rugby, R.J. Phillips says that Reid "carried no superfluous weight and was as active as a well-trained ten-stone man", but that also, from his viewpoint in the 1920s, he was "Scotland's greatest forward." He played alongside some of the greats of the era including

Andrew Don Wauchope Andrew Ramsay "Bunny" Don-Wauchope (29 April 1861 – 16 January 1948) was a Scottish international rugby union back who played club rugby for Cambridge and Fettesian-Lorettonian. Don Wauchope played an important role within the early growth ...

and Bill Maclagan. He was said to be a proficient tackler, excellent at dribbling and Scotland only lost four times in his twenty one caps. He captained Scotland in 1887 to their first Home Championship win, and also won scored tries. He maintained an interest in rugby long after retiring from the game, and after the positional changes in the early 1890s, he wrote boldly: :"''Give me a forward team like we had in Manchester in 1882, and I don't care how many threequarter backs you have; we could go through them. We dribbled very close, and backed up the other so well that they could not get away, and they had fliers like Bolton against us. Dribbling and tackling are the characteristics of the Scottish forwards, and on them we depend to win.''" However, Massie disagrees with this statement, and says that over-dependence on aggressive forward play such as that supported by Reid led to European sides being beaten thoroughly by and when they toured. Outside of rugby Reid was also a noted exponent of the shot put. At the inaugural Scottish Athletics Championships in

1883 Events January–March * January 4 – ''Life'' magazine is founded in Los Angeles, California, United States. * January 10 – A fire at the Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, kills 73 people. * Ja ...

he placed third in the event, was second in

1884 Events January–March * January 4 – The Fabian Society is founded in London. * January 5 – Gilbert and Sullivan's '' Princess Ida'' premières at the Savoy Theatre, London. * January 18 – Dr. William Price at ...

and 1885, becoming Scottish champion in both

1886 Events January–March * January 1 – Upper Burma is formally annexed to British Burma, following its conquest in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of November 1885. * January 5– 9 – Robert Louis Stevenson's novella ''Strange ...

and

1887 Events January–March * January 11 – Louis Pasteur's anti-rabies treatment is defended in the Académie Nationale de Médecine, by Dr. Joseph Grancher. * January 20 ** The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl ...

Medical career

He was a doctor by profession, and later ended up living in Selkirk.

Family

He was the brother of James Reid, who was capped five times for Scotland from 1871 to 1875, including the very first rugby international.Massie, p6

References

;Sources # Bath, Richard (ed.) ''The Scotland Rugby Miscellany'' (Vision Sports Publishing Ltd, 2007 ) # Massie, Allan ''A Portrait of Scottish Rugby'' (Polygon, Edinburgh; ) {{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Charles 1909 deaths 1864 births Rugby union players from Renfrewshire People educated at Edinburgh Academy Scottish rugby union players Scotland international rugby union players Edinburgh Academicals rugby union players Perthshire RFC players Edinburgh District (rugby union) players East of Scotland District players Rugby union forwards