Reed was born in
Bristol, the son of Thomas Reed (1795–1871), a musician, and his wife, Frances,
née German (1796–1839). He studied music with his father and made his debut at the age of ten as a pianist and singer at the
Bath Theatre. The family moved to London where Thomas Reed was appointed conductor at the
Haymarket Theatre. The young Reed played, sang and acted at the theatre. His work at the theatre included scoring and adapting new operas, including
Fra Diavolo in 1837. Reed and his wife almost always appeared in these pieces, and on the few occasions when they did not, the box-office receipts suffered. and Susan Galton in
A Dream in Venice at the Royal Gallery of Illustration, April 1867 Reed became the lessee of St. George's Hall in 1867, and there he initially produced and conducted
The Contrabandista by
Arthur Sullivan and
F. C. Burnand, ''
The Beggar's Opera'' and other English operas in small-scale productions, as well as non-musical plays. Around the same time, at the Gallery of Illustration, he presented works with libretti by, among others,
W. S. Gilbert,
William Brough,
Gilbert à Beckett,
Robert Reece and
Arthur Law. His composers included
Frederic Clay,
George Macfarren,
Alfred Cellier and
Hamilton Clarke as well as Sullivan and Reed himself. He wrote the scores for more than a dozen of the entertainments, and is described by the museum curator Fredric Woodbridge Wilson as "an imaginative and effective writer of music for the stage". Little of Reed's music survives. A few individual songs were published, but the scores of the entertainments were not. The autograph of the music for
Our Island Home is preserved in
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, but no other scores are known to be extant. When the lease on the Gallery of Illustration ended in 1873, the German Reed entertainments moved to St. George's Hall. After falling from his horse when hunting, Reed had retired in 1871; his son Alfred (1847–1895) took over the entertainments with his mother, continuing with the entertainments after her retirement in 1879, until 1895. Reed died at St Croix, Upper
East Sheen,
Surrey at the age of 70. He was buried in
Old Mortlake Burial Ground. ==Works composed by German Reed==