Kidd, Ronald Hubert

Other Events:

• Census: 1891, 6 Montpelier Street, Lewisham, Kent
• Census: 1901, 28 Downside Crescent, Hampstead

Notes:

Ronald Kidd (11 July 1889 - 13 May 1942) was a civil rights campaigner.

Born in London, England, the son of surgeon Leonard Joseph Kidd, grandson of doctor Joseph Kidd, and nephew of doctors Percy Kidd and Walter Aubrey Kidd, Ronald Hubert Kidd had a variety of jobs before finding his vocation as a campaigner against injustices in 1930s and 1940s Britain.

In 1934, angered by Police responses to hunger marchers, he founded the Council for Civil Liberty (later the National Council for Civil Liberty, or NCCL, now known as Liberty), which included such figures as E. M. Forster as its President and Clement Attlee, Aneurin Bevan, Havelock Ellis, Aldous Huxley, J. B. Priestley, Bertrand Russell, and H. G. Wells among its vice-presidents.

Please tell us your name and what you do at Liberty. My name is Ronald Hubert Kidd, and I was the first General Secretary of the National Council of Civil Liberties. In fact, I founded it, with my partner Sylvia Crowther-Smith, and the help of some very distinguished men and women.
What did you do before that? Lots of different things - I studied science at University College in London before serving in the war. I was discharged because of poor health, and I became secretary at the Wellcome Medical Museum for a while. Then I joined the civil service, working in the Ministry of Pensions until they cut pensions for 'shell-shocked' world war veterans - after everything those men had endured! I resigned in disgust. For a while after that I was a freelance journalist (where I made some contacts which were very helpful in the Council's early days) and an actor - that's how I met Sylvia, she was working as an actress. In 1933 I was working in publishing and running a little bookshop on the Strand.
How would your friends describe you? Well, my friend and associate Claud Cockburn once said I was a “saint-like man… who looked like the canon of some rather forward-looking diocese”, which was frightfully good of him. I think it's the glasses.
Have you always been a campaigner? Oh yes - before the war I joined the campaign for women's suffrage, and also gave lectures for the Workers' Educational Association. Sylvia and I joined many demonstrations against the Nazis, and of course I was always in support of the hunger marchers. Inequality appals me, and throughout my life I have refused to tolerate it.
What is the most rewarding part of your job? Injustice spurs me to action, and although I have never thought of myself as any sort of celebrity I am pleased to have been able to inspire others. Together we have achieved remarkable things, and I am terribly proud to see Liberty going from strength to strength, 75 years on.

Ronald married Gurthler, Isidora Alwina A in Q3 1916 in Hampstead, London, England. Isidora (daughter of Gurthler, Hugo and Bailey, Florence Ellen) was born on 20 Jul 1888 in Croydon, Surrey; died in Q2 1976 in Hereford. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]