Richard Kidder was born 1633/4, the eighth of nine children of the saddler William Kidder and his wife Elizabeth Wickenden, and christened at East Grinstead on 9^th February 1633/4. He was educated at a grammar school and admitted sizar of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in June 1649, took the degree of B.A. in 1652, and was elected fellow of his college in 1653. In 1662 he was ejected for nonconformity from the vicarage of Stanground, in Huntingdonshire, but conforming soon after, he was presented in 1664 to the rectory of Raine, in Essex. In 1674 the Merchant Taylors' Company gave him the rectory of St. Martin's Outwich. In 1681 he was made pre bend of Norwich, and in 1689 dean of Peterborough; two years afterwards, on the deprivation of Bishop Ken, he was raised to the see of Bath and Wells.

He and his wife died in the night of 26^th November 1703, at Wells, being killed in bed by the fall of a stack of chimneys occasioned by the great storm.