Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/98

 admirably suited, both by his learning and his exact and studious taste) he retained till his death, which took place, after a few hours' illness on 17 Sept. 1851, at Oxford. He married Miss Savery daughter of the chaplain of St. Thomas's Hospital, who survived him, and by her had four daughters.

Kidd was ‘gifted with a real scientific insight,’ and took a prominent part with W. Buckland, Philip Bury Duncan [q. v.], and Charles Giles Bridle Daubeny in the promotion of science at Oxford. His admirable behaviour during the two outbreaks of cholera in Oxford in 1830 and 1848, which is specially commemorated in the printed accounts of both those visitations, illustrates his practical benevolence. The mastership of the hospital at Ewelme, near Oxford, is annexed to the office of regius professor of medicine. The restoration of the hospital, and of such part of the parish church as belongs to it, was carried out during Kidd's mastership; and he introduced some wise regulations for the comfort and welfare of the bedesmen. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, and contributed to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ (1815) an ‘Essay on the Spontaneous Production of Salt-Petre;’ and (1825) an elaborate paper on the ‘Anatomy of the Mole-cricket.’ He was eminently straightforward, somewhat hasty and hot-tempered, and averse to all show and pretence, so that he is said to have been the first physician in Oxford who laid aside the traditional wig and large-brimmed hat and gold-headed cane.

Besides the works already mentioned Kidd wrote:
 * 1) ‘A Geological Essay on the Imperfect Evidence in support of a Theory of the Earth, deducible either from its General Structure, or from the Changes produced on its Surface by the operation of existing Causes,’ 8vo, Oxford, 1815.
 * 2) ‘An Answer to a Charge against the English Universities in the Supplement to the “Edinburgh Encyclopædia,”’ 8vo, Oxford, 1818.
 * 3) ‘Observations on Medical Reform,’ 8vo, Oxford, 1841, with ‘Further Observations,’ 1842.

 KIDD, JOSEPH BARTHOLOMEW (1808–1889), painter, born in 1808, perhaps at Edinburgh, was a pupil of the Rev. [q. v.] of Duddingston. On the foundation of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1826 Kidd was elected one of the original associates, and became an academician in 1829. He practised painting at Edinburgh till about 1836, when he came to London, resigning his membership of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1838. He then settled as a teacher of drawing at Greenwich, where he resided until his death in May 1889, at the age of eighty-one. Kidd chiefly painted the scenery of his native country, and executed a few etchings of highland views. Some of his pictures were engraved. Not long before his death he painted a portrait of the queen for the Royal Hospital Schools, Greenwich.

 KIDD, SAMUEL (1804–1843), missionary at Malacca and professor of Chinese at University College, London, born 22 Nov. 1804 at Welton, near Hull, was educated at the village school of that place. In 1818 he was sent to Hull, where his thoughts were directed towards a missionary career, and in 1820 he entered the London Missionary Society's training college at Gosport. In April 1824 he married Hannah, second daughter of William Irving of Hull. At the end of the same month he sailed under the auspices of the London Missionary Society to Madras, and thence to Malacca, where he arrived in the November following. He at once began the study of the Fuhkien dialect of Chinese, and under the advice and direction of the Rev. David Collie made rapid progress. In the course of 1826 he published several small tracts in Chinese, and in the year following he was appointed professor of Chinese in the Anglo-Chinese College of Malacca. From this time he took an active part in missionary labours, preaching constantly and preparing tracts for publication. In 1829 Mrs. Kidd was obliged to return to England on account of her health, and three years later attacks of epilepsy, to which he had become subject, compelled Kidd himself to adopt the same remedy. He had fully intended to return to Malacca, but the state of his health forbade him, and in 1833 he was appointed pastor of a church at Manningtree in Essex. In 1837 he was appointed professor of Chinese at University College, London, for a term of five years. It was understood at the time of his nomination that his appointment would be renewed at the end of that term, but the condition was disregarded, and it was while the matter was in debate that he died suddenly on 12 June 1843, at his residence in Camden Town. Besides a number of small Chinese tracts, Kidd was the author of ‘Critical