James Cameron Kidd
James Cameron Kidd (c1843-1903)
1904 Obituary [1]
J. C. KIDD died at his residence at Cardonald, near Glasgow, on October 22, 1903, at the age of 60.
Throughout the greater part of his career he was engaged in the Government Telegraph Workshops at Alipore, near Calcutta, having gone out to India in 1869, at a time when telegraph construction in that country was still in its infancy. It was chiefly due to his energy and talent for organisation that the Government works developed from the small beginnings which he found at the time he first joined until they reached their present capacity.
When he left the service the works were employing some 750 men, and were capable of turning out all the ordinary telegraph instruments used in India and a large proportion of the iron poles and fittings used on the lines. It was a good life's work alone to have trained up so large a number of natives to become the efficient workmen they were at the time he left. For 32 years he laboured ungrudgingly in the service of the Department, and his health being then much shattered by the trying climate, he at length in May, 1901, sought retirement in his native country of Scotland. His loss to the works was greatly felt by his associates and by the men who had worked under him. It was the writer's privilege to have been associated with him in his work at intervals for 18 years, and he was many times witness of his remarkable capacity for managing the native workmen, by whom he was held in high respect and esteem.
He was elected an Associate of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1880, and was transferred to Membership in 1899.