William Reid

Born in Riccarton near Kilmarnock in 1822, William Reid arrived in Madeira at the age of 14 with the £5 given him by his father still in his pocket. He was the son of a Scottish farmer and one of twelve children. Like many others, he had been advised to go to Madeira for the sake of his health and had worked his passage to Lisbon and then to Funchal.

His first job was in a bakery but he quickly realised that the wine trade would be profitable and by the age of 25 he owned a small wine exporting company. The positive impact that Madeira had had on his health convinced him that Madeira was an ideal island for those suffering from TB, bronchitis, and other ailments. With a partner, William Wilkinson, Reid developed a property business that let and administered some of the island's quintas that were owned by British merchants or affluent Portuguese.

These “self-catering villas” were let out between October and June, attracting wealthy British people who would often spend months on the island, sometimes taking their servants, and governesses for their children. One client was the Marchioness Camden. She arrived with a companion, Margaret Dewey, who married Reid in 1847. They had twelve children: several died in infancy.

Their success in letting property to visitors led Reid and his wife to plan the development of a hotel. They purchased the Quinta das Fontes and transformed it into the Royal Edinburgh Hotel. This required the permission of the then Duke of Edinburgh, Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria. As a Royal Navy officer, he had often visited Madeira and knew Reid. Subsequently, they established other hotels, including the Santa Clara Hotel and the Miles Carmo Hotel in Funchal, as well as accommodation in the mountain village of Monte and a hotel in St. Anne’s (now Santana) on the north coast.

In 1850 tourism to Madeira was boosted by the lengthy stay of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (nicknamed Sisi). By this time Reid was 28 and had a chain of small hotels. There were very few hotels on the island and his business was a virtual monopoly. In 1881, Reid and his wife bought and moved into the Quinta do Bom Sucesso, which became the Botanical Garden of Madeira in 1960.

Not content with his success he wanted to build a luxury hotel and had identified the perfect site, 50m above the Atlantic, on the west side of the bay, about 3km from the centre of Funchal. This was known as Horse’s Leap (Salto do Cavalo). Unfortunately, there was already a quinta built on the site, owned by Dr. Michael Grabham. Eventually the doctor was persuaded to sell the land and in 1887 Reid began to plan his hotel. He commissioned the architect and Egyptologist, George Somers Clarke, who had designed Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo, and his partner John Thomas Micklethwaite. The hotel was to be surrounded by ten acres of sub-tropical gardens, which required baskets of soil to be carried up the steep hill to create fertile land on the rocks, into which plants, shrubs and trees were planted. The garden is now exceptional, with more than 500 species.  

Reid was unable to celebrate the hotel’s completion. He died in 1888. Two sons, William and Alfred, oversaw the hotel’s construction and, in November 1891, the hotel opened its doors. To help to attract visitors, the sons published a short guidebook on Madeira in the same year. Initially the hotel was known as the New Hotel, later becoming the New Palace Hotel, and then Reid's Palace or just "Reid's". In its time it has attracted many famous visitors, most notably, of course, Winston Churchill.