Thomas Kidd

Thomas Kidd (1770 - August 27, 1850), English classical scholar and schoolmaster, was born in Yorkshire. He was educated at Giggleswick School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was the father of John Tyrwhitt Davy Kidd who served in India for many years and Richard Bently Porson Kidd, who was rector of Potter Heigham church among other duties in Norwich, Norfolk. Richard BP had a son, Richard Hayward Kidd, who was Colonial Chaplain of Hong Kong until his death in 1879.

He held numerous scholastic and clerical appointments, the last being the rectory of Croxton, near Cambridge, where he died on the 27th of August 1850. Kidd was an intimate friend of 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:

• Opuscula Ruhnkeniana (1807), the minor works of the great Dutch scholar David Ruhnken
• Miscellanea Critica of Richard Dawes (2nd ed., 1827)
• Tracts and Miscellaneous Criticisms of Richard Porson (1815).

He also published an edition of the works of Horace (1817) based upon Bentley's recension.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.