John Kidd (chemist)

For other people named John Kidd, see John Kidd (disambiguation).

John Kidd
Born	10 September 1775 Westminster
Died	7 September 1851
Nationality	English
Fields	Chemistry Geologist

John Kidd (10 September 1775 – 7 September 1851) was an English physician, chemist and geologist. John Kidd was born in Westminster, the son of a naval officer and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford.

Biography

He became reader in chemistry at Oxford in 1801, and in 1803 was elected the first Aldrichian professor of chemistry. He then voluntarily gave courses of lectures on mineralogy and geology: these were delivered in the dark chambers under the Ashmolean Museum, and there William Conybeare, William Buckland, Charles Daubeny and others gained their first lessons in geology. Kidd was a popular and instructive lecturer, and through his efforts the geological chair, first held by Buckland, was established.

The first of the scriptural geologists, "Kidd argued in his book A Geological Essay on the Imperfect Evidences in Support of a Theory of the Earth, on philosophical grounds, that a science of observation cannot claim certainty for its inferences as to causes, and that consequently theoretical geology cannot stand against an indisputable authority such as revelation." 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.

In March 1822 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He delivered the Harveian Oration before the Royal College of Physicians in 1836.

Publications

• Outlines of Mineralogy (1809)
• A Geological Essay on the Imperfect Evidence in Support of a Theory of the Earth (1815)#
• The second Bridgewater Treatise: On the Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man (1833).

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• "JOHN Kidd (1775-1851)". British medical journal 2 (4733): 734. September 1951. PMID 14869708. 

See also

Earl of Bridgewater for other Bridgewater Treatise