Professor Gordon Stanley Reid PhD

1984 – 1989

Gordon Reid was born in 1923 and educated at Hurstville Technical School in Sydney, Canberra, University College and the London School of Economics.

As with the majority of Governors before him, Reid had been a military man as a Flight Officer with the Royal Australian Air Force. He commenced his civilian career as a reading clerk from 1946 to 1948, was an accountant and clerk of papers from 1948 to 1952.

He married Ruth Fish on 30 June 1945 and they had two sons and two daughters.

Reid then turned to academia where he became the senior lecturer in the public administration from 1958 to 1964 and a reader in politics at the University of Adelaide from 1964 to 1966. In 1971 he became professor to political science at the Australian National University, then the Vice Chancellor and Professor of Politics at the University of Western Australia between 1978 and 1982.

He was appointed Governor of Western Australia on 2 July 1984. He resigned from the post on 30 September 1989 due to illness and died shortly after.