He remained with the Bureau of Meteorology until 1927, when he was appointed Director of the New Zealand Meteorological Service, a position he held until his untimely death in June 1939.

Edward Kidson was born in 1882 at Bilston, Staffordshire, England, and when a child of three his family settled in New Zealand. He was educated at Nelson College and completed his University studies at Canterbury College, gaining the degree of Master of Science with honours in physics in 1906 and the degree of Master of Arts with honours in Mathematics in the following year.

In 1908, Kidson was appointed Assistant at the Magnetic Observatory at Christchurch, and for the next fifteen years (only interrupted by the first world war) his work was associated with magnetic surveys.

After early experience on a magnetic survey of the New Zealand sub-Antarctic islands, he joined the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He conducted first an expedition of survey in South America, after which he was assigned to the survey ship Carnegie. He completed the first lengthy cruise on the Carnegie, and while on the second, he was assigned to Australia to organise and conduct a magnetic survey of the continent. In preliminary discussions with the State authorities he found that the only worthwhile magnetic surveying that had been done by that time (1911) had been carried out in Victoria by the indefatigable Neumayer between 1858 and 1864.

Bureau of Meteorology