Alfred Hamish Reed (1875-1975) was a notable New Zealand bookseller, publisher, writer, and philanthropist, but is perhaps best remembered in his later years as a long-distance walker who became somewhat of a national folk icon.
A.H. Reed, as he was widely known, was also one of the Dunedin Public Library’s major donors. In 1948, he gifted his valuable collection of rare books and manuscripts, which included Bibles, autograph letters, and the Samuel Johnson and Charles Dickens collections. It was to be known as the Alfred and Isabel Reed Collection and was made over to the City of Dunedin by deed of gift dated 16 January 1948.
In 2025, the Dunedin Public Libraries’ Heritage Collections commemorates Reed’s 150th birthday with a biographical exhibition Books and the Friendly Road: Celebrating 150 Years of A.H. Reed, which opens on 9 May in the Reed Gallery, 3rd Floor, City Library.
Born in Hayes, Middlesex, England in 1875, Alfred Reed emigrated to New Zealand with his family, and his youth here provided a link with the country’s pioneering days. He lived with his family in Northland, in a rough slab hut with a sod chimney, his mother cooking meals outdoors. Alfred attended school at Whangārei with his brothers, but his school days ended when he seriously injured his leg at age twelve. He began working as a gum-digger after his two-year recovery period, utilizing any spare time on self-education and learning Pitman shorthand. He then sought employment in Auckland, eventually joining a typewriter firm for twenty shillings per week.
In 1897, the firm sent Alfred to open a branch in Dunedin, which he would call home for the next 78 years. In 1899 Reed married his beloved Isabel Fisher, whom he had met while boarding with her family in Auckland.
From about 1907 Reed ventured into bookselling, chiefly importing British materials. He began publishing religious literature as a side project in what was to be the rudiments of the House of Reed. After World War I he took in his nephew Alexander Wyclif Reed as a partner and the imprint of A.H. & A.W. Reed in time became synonymous with popular New Zealand literature.
Isabel Reed died in 1939, and after his retirement in 1940, A.H. lived a frugal but busy life. As well as writing histories, he authored books that chronicled his various walking expeditions. Reed made friends wherever he went and delighted children with school visits.
Reed’s extraordinarily long life – just short of a century – spanned from the mid-Victorian period to the ‘permissive society’ of the mid-1970s. Upon his passing in 1975, his remarkable affability and ease around people was noted: “No man in the history of this nation had more real friends from the small child right through to the elderly” was the summation of Dunedin mayor Jim Barnes.
Due to its biographical focus, the present exhibition includes many items from the Reed Archive – the personal papers which A.H. Reed had planned (in consultation with his nephew A.W. Reed and City Librarian Mary Ronnie) to donate to the Dunedin Public Library upon his death. The Reed Archive comprises A.H. Reed’s personal correspondence, greetings cards, typescript and manuscript material, photographs, newspaper clippings, diaries, notebooks, prospectuses, drawings, and countless ephemeral items which he gathered throughout his long and busy life.
A second exhibition focussing on the book collection he donated to the Dunedin Public Library, entitled A Living Memorial: Alfred Reed’s Legacy to Dunedin follows on 14 November. Please join us in celebration of this most singular personality that was A.H. Reed.
Julian Smith, Reed Rare Books Librarian