Kilgorman | Page 2

certainly never was other than a recreation to
him.
The pen dropped from his hand ere he had quite completed the work,
yet, as the book stands here, it is much as he meant to leave it. The
figures of Barry Gallagher, and Tim, and the charming Kit will take
their places in the delightful gallery of his young people, and their
adventures by land and by sea will be followed with an increased
interest that they are the last that can come from his brilliant pen.
Talbot Reed came of a right good English stock, both on his father's
and his mother's side. His grandfather, Dr Andrew Reed, a
Nonconformist minister of note in his day, left his mark in some of the
soundest philanthropic undertakings of the century. His thoughtfulness
and self- sacrificing energy have lightened the sufferings and soothed
the old age of many thousands. He was one of the founders of the
London, Reedham, and Infant Orphan Asylums, the Earlswood Asylum
for Idiots, and the Royal Hospital for Incurables. His son, Sir Charles
Reed, and grandsons, have done yeoman service in carrying on to the
present day the noble work begun by him.
Talbot was the third son of the late Sir Charles Reed, Member of
Parliament for Hackney, and latterly for Saint Ives (Cornwall). His
mother, Lady Reed, was the youngest daughter of Mr Edward Baines,
Member of Parliament for Leeds. She was a lady of saintly life, of
infinite gentleness and sweetness of heart, with extraordinary strength
and refinement of mind, reverenced and loved by her sons and
daughters, and by none more than by Talbot Reed, who bore a strong
resemblance to her alike in disposition and in physical appearance.
The service that Sir Charles Reed did for his generation, both in
Parliament and as Chairman of the London School Board, and in
connection with many of the religious and philanthropic movements of
his time, are too well known to be recapitulated here.

Talbot B. Reed was born on the 3rd of April 1852, at Hackney. His first
schoolmaster was Mr Anderton of Priory House School, Upper Clapton,
under whose care he remained until he was thirteen years of age. He
retained through life a feeling of warm affection to Mr Anderton, who
thoroughly prepared him for the more serious work ahead of him. Only
a year or two ago, Reed was one of the most active of Mr Anderton's
old pupils in organising a dinner in honour of his former master.
In 1865 Talbot was entered at the City of London School, then located
in Milk Street, Cheapside, under the headship of Dr Abbot, where he
spent four happy and industrious years of his boyhood. He is described
by Mr Vardy, a school-comrade, in the course of a recent interesting
article by the Editor of the Boy's Own Paper, as being at this period "a
handsome boy, strong and well proportioned, with a frank open face,
black hair, and lively dark eyes, fresh complexion, full of life and
vigour, and with a clear ringing voice ... He was audacious with that
charming audacity that suits some boys. On one occasion he had very
calmly absented himself from the class-room during a temporary
engagement by the French master, who, having returned before he was
expected, and while Reed was away, demanded by what leave he had
left the class-room. Reed replied with (as he would probably have
expressed it) 'awful cheek,' 'If you please, sir, I took "French" leave!'"
Reed was popular at school both with masters and boys. His initials,
"T.B.," soon became changed familiarly into "Tib," by which endearing
nickname Mr Vardy says he was known to the last by the comrades of
his school-days.
It is interesting, in the light of the prominence which in all his school
stories he properly gave to out-of-door sports and athletic exercises, to
have it, on the authority of his old school-fellow, that he excelled in all
manly exercises. He was a first-rate football- player, and a good
all-round cricketer; he was an excellent oar, and a fairly good swimmer;
and until the last few months of his life no man could enjoy with more
zest a game of quoits, or tennis, or a day devoted to the royal game of
golf. In the early days of his manhood, with characteristic unselfishness,
he risked his own life on one occasion by leaping from a rock into the

sea, on the wild north Irish coast, to bring safely ashore his cousin (and
life-long friend, Mr Talbot Baines, the distinguished editor of the Leeds
Mercury), who has told me that he would, without Reed's prompt and
plucky aid, inevitably have been drowned.
The large contribution he made to literature in later days amply serves
to prove that the