Thomas Reeve, civil engineer, was the only son of Thomas Reeve and his wife Jane Storey. He worked for Messrs Lucas and Aird in England for many years and was engaged on engineering works at, among others, the Royal Albert and Tilbury Docks on the Thames and the Alexandra Docks at Hull. Thereafter he was employed on the harbour works at Ensenada, Argentina. In 1888 he accepted a position with the Port Elizabeth Harbour Board. He was promoted to engineer-in-charge in 1900, and still held this position in 1905. He became a member of the Cape Society of Civil Engineers in 1904 and in 1913 was still a member of its successor, the South African Society of Civil Engineers. His hobbies were ornamental lathe work, microscopy, and natural history, and he served on the Port Elizabeth Museum Committee and the Port Elizabeth Library Committee. He was married in 1876 to Margaret Buswell and had five children.

By 1890 Reeve was a member of the Eastern Province Naturalists' Society and in 1908 represented that society on the King William's Town Museum Committee. He was a foundation member of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science (1902) and represented Port Elizabeth on its council during 1902-1905. In 1894 he donated some marine animals to the Albany Museum, Grahamstown. In 1917 he presented ants from Port Elizabeth to the South African Museum, Cape Town.

List of sources:

Cape of Good Hope. Report of the Committee of the Albany Museum, 1894.

Cape of Good Hope. Report of the Committee of the Public Museum, King William's Town, 1908.

Cape Society of Civil Engineers. Minutes of Proceedings, 1904-1907, Vol. 2-5, lists of members.

Eastern Province Naturalists' Society. Ninth annual report, 1890, p. 27, list of members.

FamilySearch: Thomas Reeve. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-95DR-SDRX?view=index&personArk=/ark:/61903/1:1:W92W-V32M&action=view&cc=1779109&lang=en&groupId=M964-BNJ AND https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/GDLV-FYX

National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System (NAAIRS). http://national.archives.gov.za/naairs.htm Documents relating to Reeve, Thomas / Reeve, T.

[Robertson, H.G.] Biodiversity explorers, at http://www.biodiversityexplorer.org/people as on 8 February 2011.

South African Association for the Advancement of Science. Report, 1903, 1904, 1905/6, 1910.

South African who's who, 1908.

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2025-10-03 09:56:07