He was born in Aberdeen on 9 August 1882, the son of Thomas Kyd, actuary, and later manager of the Northern assurance company.
He then joined his father's firm at the Northern Assurance and enrolled as an actuary student in 1903.
This in turn led him to a job in the Irish Insurance Commission in Dublin where he stayed until 1921.
He moved to London in 1926 and rose to be Principal Actuary in the Civil Service.
In 1937, he returned to Scotland as Registrar General[2] in place of Andrew Froude who had retired due to ill-health.