Was born at Grantham, in Lincolnshire. His age at the time of his
execution was forty-five. He was apprenticed to Mr. Cante, of Grantham,
but quitted his situation at sixteen years of age. He then went to
Nottingham, where he lived two years and a half; from thence he came
to London, where he resided several years. He thought it prudent to
retreat into Scotland in 1803, and he stopped there for five years.
This flight was made in consequence of his having voted for Sir Francis
Burdett, at the Middlesex election, when the Honourable Baronet was
opposed by Mr. Mainwaring. Tidd swore that he was a freeholder--the
fact being otherwise, and fled to avoid prosecution for perjury. A
reward of 100_l._ was offered for his apprehension.
On his return from the north, he went to live at Rochester, and for
nine years worked at his trade of shoemaker in that town. He was
engaged in the conspiracy for which Colonel Despard suffered; but a
temporary absence from town preserved him from sharing the same fate.
His last stay in town commenced on the 10th of March, 1818. From that
time he attended all Mr. Hunt’s meetings, public and private, and was
present at all the subsequent Radical meetings. He was introduced to
Edwards by Brunt, at his own residence, Hole-in-the-Wall Passage,
Baldwin’s-gardens. Edwards’s assumed violence suited his disposition,
and he eagerly closed with every proposition, however desperate.
It was a most extraordinary circumstance that he had constantly an
impression on his mind, for the last twenty years, that he was to be
hanged. He frequently expressed to his wife that he should die on the
gallows, who felt distressed at his entertaining such an idea, but he
would still persist that such would be his fate. He was unhappily too
good a prophet, and thus a life of irregularity terminated in the most
ignominious manner.
Mrs. Tidd is a very decent woman; Tidd has left a brother and one
daughter to deplore his fate.
Tidd, during the war, enlisted into more than half of the regiments
under the crown, and received the different bounties. It is astonishing
how he escaped detection; he was always in disguise when he enlisted,
and, as soon as he had obtained the bounty, he deserted. When he had
spent the money, he enlisted into another regiment.
It will be evident from this account, that the statements of his
uniform good character and conduct published at the period of his first
arrest, for the crime of which he was ultimately found guilty on an
impartial trial by a Jury of his countrymen, were put forth by some
zealous friend to produce a favourable impression on the public mind in
his behalf.