He was born in Yorkshire, and educated at Giggleswick School and Trinity College, Cambridge.
The last of these had a son, Richard Hayward Kidd, who was Colonial Chaplain of Hong Kong until his death in 1879.
[citation needed] Kidd held numerous scholastic and clerical appointments.
Kidd was an intimate friend of Richard Porson and Charles Burney the younger.
He contributed largely to periodicals, chiefly on classical subjects, but his reputation mainly rests upon his editions of the works of other scholars:[3] He also published an edition of the works of Horace (1817) based upon Richard Bentley's recension.