Australian Dictionary of Biography

Jane Sinclair Reid (1883-1968), educator of the blind, was born on 21 December 1883 at Esk Bank, Hartley, New South Wales, eldest of four children of Robert Sinclair Reid, Scottish sawmill manager, and his Brisbane-born wife Eliza Jane, née Howe. After her family moved to Bexley, Roberta, as she was known, was educated at Sydney Girls' High School from 1897 and the University of Sydney (B.A., 1904).

With no prior teaching experience or training, Roberta Reid began work at the Darlington school conducted by the New South Wales Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind (Royal New South Wales Institution for Deaf and Blind Children) in February 1904. Two years later she was appointed head teacher of the blind and with one assistant taught about twenty pupils. In 1908 she also assumed responsibility for the education of the deaf and blind child Alice Betteridge. With dedication and using Braille and the manual alphabet, she managed to teach her to read and communicate freely.

Miss Reid taught her pupils English, history, geography, arithmetic, typewriting and 'a little French' and shared her love of language and literature with them, arousing in some a lifelong interest. She also encouraged them to sing and play the piano, and cultivated an interest in current affairs by discussing newspaper items with them. She fought for the introduction of carpentry for the boys and domestic science for the girls and took them on outings to the Australian Museum. Her view of education extended beyond the classroom. She was opposed to blind people sitting for public examinations, believing appropriate employment opportunities would not be available to them; and that the resulting disappointment might ruin their lives.

By the 1930s Miss Reid and her staff of three were teaching forty-four children. After the school was requisitioned for military purposes in World War II they taught the local children in their homes or at a temporary day school at Strathfield and prepared correspondence lessons for the country children. When the institution opened a new school for the blind at Wahroonga in 1946, with the Department of Education assuming responsibility for classroom work, Roberta Reid was appointed headmistress; she retired in September 1948.

Tall and stately, Miss Reid always dressed immaculately. Although naturally reserved and anxious to foster such qualities as thrift and honesty, she took a warm interest in her pupils' welfare. She was remembered by them with respect and affection. The success of her methods was evident in the self-reliance of her ex-pupils and their ability to compete with sighted people. Considered by the institution 'the leading authority in Australia on the education of the blind', she continued to serve as a consultant. In June 1951 she was appointed M.B.E. A member of the Sydney University Women Graduates' Association and the Women's Club, she died at her Roseville home on 19 October 1968 and was cremated with Presbyterian forms.