Kidd was one of the best known farm machinery names in Ireland through the 1960s to the early 1990s. While the company was based in Devizes in Wiltshire, England, the Kidd machines had an interesting history in Ireland, which was next to England in terms of market importance. Archie Kidd set up Kidd Farm Machinery in 1959. The first Kidd machines were imported into Ireland by IAWS, based at Thomas Street in Dublin from around 1960.
Kidd was one of the best known farm machinery names in Ireland through the 1960s to the early 1990s. While the company was based in Devizes in Wiltshire, England, the Kidd machines had an interesting history in Ireland, which was next to England in terms of market importance.
Archie Kidd set up Kidd Farm Machinery in 1959. The first Kidd machines were imported into Ireland by IAWS, based at Thomas Street in Dublin from around 1960.
This was a short lived arrangement and the franchise soon moved to McGee’s of Ardee, one of the biggest farm machinery companies in the country at the time.
McGee’s of Ardee retained the Kidd franchise until 1975 when Kidd set up its own company, Archie Kidd (Ireland) Ltd at the Long Mile Road in Dublin.
This was a contentious move and McGee’s began legal proceedings over the loss of the franchise.
The case was settled on the court steps more than a year later. Kidd paid McGee’s some £50,000 in compensation, a lot of money at the time.
McGee’s sold large numbers of the early Kidd silage harvesters, the Rotoflail, which was available as an inline single chop harvester or an offset machine. The Rotoflail had a 1.2m (4ft) cutting width using 17 flat, cast-iron flails attached to a strong rotor.
While the Kidd brochure of the day said “these blades are hardened and tempered to give up to 300 acres of life on normal non-stony ground at correct cutting height”, not all Irish farmers agreed and conditions were not always ideal, so replacing blades/flails became a big issue.
This machine was followed by double chop and precision chop models. They were far from perfect, and while Archie Kidd aimed to design heavy-duty, robust machines, the harvesters had endless gearbox problems.
Kidd’s also produced a range of diet feeding machines, which were considered forage boxes and were used on many bigger Irish farms in the early 1970s.
The mixing of silage, straw and other feeds was done by a set of rotors above the discharge auger.
Geoff Daly, who was selling Kidd machines for a number of years with McGee’s of Ardee, moved to be the managing director at Archie Kidd Ireland when it was created in 1975.
Two years later, Archie Kidd sold his business to the Wolseley Hughes Corporation a company, which, at the time, was buying up other agricultural equipment makers including Parmiter and McConnel.
In 1991, Kidd was sold on to the Danish firm Taarup, which was making a range of silage harvesters from single chops to precision chop machines. Two years later, Kverneland acquired Taarup, and created the Taarup-Kidd machinery brand.
There was a proposal to close the Kidd factory and sell the Taarup forage harvester machines in Ireland, both in Kidd blue and Taarup red, for a period. This never happened and soon the Kidd range disappeared altogether.
There are still a number of Kidd harvesters working on Irish farms. These are mostly double chop silage harvesters and toppers.
During its Wolseley Hughes days, Kidd was searching for new products to its range.
An Irish designed silage wagon was included in the range, but was not very successful.
This machine used two small square baler pick-ups and plungers to feed grass up through the floor of the trailer. Kidd made a very small number of the machines, some of which ended up on Irish farms.
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