David Campbell Kidd

Kidd was born in 1889 in Shag Point,[1] Otago and received his education at Albany Street Public School in Dunedin. Together with his brother Peter, he worked on and later managed his father's farm, 'Moss Vale', Mt Nessing Road, Albury. He played rugby for the Albury club before the Great War. He went into World War I with the South Canterbury Mounted Rifles and was wounded in the Battle of Gaza in 1917. After the war, he took up a farm as a crown lease at 'Single Hill" Burkes Pass.[2] In 1940 he purchased 'Manahune' in the Te Ngawai district of Albury.

Kidd became the first Dominion president of the Crown Tenants' Association, and was also represented on the Canterbury Land Board, and the Timaru Harbour Board.[2]

In the 1938 election, Kidd won the Waitaki electorate from Labour's David Barnes by just 14 votes.[2][3] He held the electorate at the next election in 1943.[4] The Waitaki electorate was abolished for the 1946 election,[5] and Kidd successfully stood in the Waimate electorate instead. He was again elected in 1949 and 1951.

He died on 23 September 1954 in Kimberley, South Africa, while returning from a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in Nairobi, Kenya.[2] As it was less than two months before the 1954 election, a by-election was not necessary.[4] He was succeeded by National's Alfred Davey.[6]

Kidd married Anne Elizabeth 'Nan' Stirling in 1919. Anne died in 1940 aged 43.[7][8] They had two children together. He later married Bessie Loy, who outlived him.[1]

• Gustafson, Barry (1986). The First 50 Years : A History of the New Zealand National Party. Auckland: Reed Methuen. ISBN 0-474-00177-6.
• Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First ed. published 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.