[1] Kidd was born in Westminster, the son of a naval officer, and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford.

Kidd was a popular and instructive lecturer, and through his efforts the geological chair, first held by Buckland, was established.

[5] In 1818 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians; in 1822 Regius Professor of Medicine in succession to Sir Christopher Pegge; and in 1834 he was appointed keeper of the Radcliffe Library.

[6] In 1830 the president of the Royal Society appointed him as one of the eight authors of the Bridgewater Treatises "on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Creation.

"[7][8] His treatise on the "Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man," which was published in 1833, offered "a popular rather than a scientific exposition of facts"[9] and set out to protect readers from materialism and the transmutation of species.