His father, Archibald Glen Kidston, was a grandson of the original A. G. Kidston, founder of the firm A.G. Kidston & Co, who was a metal and machinery merchant in
Glasgow with interests in the
Clyde Shipping Company, local solicitors, accountants and banking interests amalgamated into the
Clydesdale Bank. Kidston was a member of the well-known
Bentley Boys of the late 1920s, and possibly the wealthiest of that already wealthy set. Kidston was one of the four, core
Grosvenor Square-based
Bentley team drivers, whose day-long parties passed into contemporary legend. A
lieutenant commander in the
Royal Navy, he was
torpedoed twice (in the consecutive sinkings of and ) in the same morning during the
action of 22 September 1914 against German submarine under the command of Commander
Otto Weddigen. Following repatriation he served in the dreadnought , with the British
Grand Fleet at the
Battle of Jutland, running gunnery orders on open deck under direct enemy fire. Kidston served on several leading-edge British submarines, including the notorious , which he served on in North Sea trials. During the trials the
X1 became embedded in the seabed as its gauges were faulty. In December 1926 he received command of an
H-class submarine, the Beardmore-built . Away from his duties as a submariner, he was an early pioneer of naval flight. Kidston competed in numerous motor races including the
Monte Carlo Rally,
Isle of Man TT motorcycle races, and
Shelsley Walsh hillclimb. As a naval amateur he raced a
Sunbeam motorcycle up the hill climb in
Hong Kong and conducted speed trials on the sands, bringing the bike with him in his submarine which was patrolling the China Station. Kidston entered the 1929 Irish Grand Prix Éireann Cup at
Phoenix Park but was narrowly beaten by the
Alfa Romeo of former Russian Imperial Guard officer
Boris Ivanowski. This was achieved at the expense of Britons Glen Kidston and
Henry Birkin, whose Bentleys were second and third respectively. He also owned and raced the first
Bugatti in the UK and entered the
Le Mans 24-hour race in
1929 and
1930. On the second occasion he won the race, driving a
Bentley Speed Six in partnership with
Woolf Barnato, with the Bentley team delivering a 1-2-3-4 victory. In 1929, Kidston was travelling from
Croydon to
Amsterdam aboard a German airliner when, 21 minutes into the flight, he sensed an
imminent crash and assumed the safety position. On impact, Kidston kicked his way out of the fuselage while his clothing was burning and extinguished the flames by rolling in the wet grass. He was the
sole survivor, and was hospitalised with extensive burns. The plane's co-pilot,
Prince Eugen of Schaumburg-Lippe, was ejected from the plane and initially survived, but died of his injuries the next day. Kidston was a renowned big game hunter and expert shot, and travelled on pioneering safaris in remote Kenyan districts. Films of these expeditions, of his early naval and other aviation and Bentley teamwork are held at the
British Film Institute due to their quality and pioneering footage. In April 1931, Kidston completed a record-breaking flight from
Netheravon, Wiltshire, to
Cape Town, South Africa. He completed the journey in 6½ days, flying his own specially adapted
Lockheed Vega monoplane and averaging . News of Kidston's death broke in the London evening papers and
Margaret Whigham (later Duchess of Argyll) and
Barbara Cartland, both amongst Kidston's lovers, claim in their memoirs to have fainted on leaving the theatre and seeing the headlines. The Hollywood femme fatale
Pola Negri is also reputed to have known Kidston. == Family ==