Glen Kidston
| Nationality | British |
|---|---|
| 24 Hours of Le Mans career | |
| Participating years | 1929-1930 |
| Teams | Bentley Motors Ltd. |
| Best finish | 1st (1930) |
| Class wins | 1 (1930) |
George Pearson Glen Kidston (23 January 1899 – 5 May 1931) was an English record-breaking aviator and motor racing driver.
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 HMS Aboukir and Hogue) in the same morning during the action of 22 September 1914 against German submarine U-9 under the command of Commander Otto Weddigen. Following repatriation he served in the dreadnought HMS Orion, 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 X1, which he served on in North Sea trials. During the trials the X1 embedded itself in the seabed as its gauges were faulty. In December 1926 he received command of an H-class submarine, the Beardmore-built H24, built at Portsmouth. Away from his duties as a submariner, he was an early pioneer of naval flight.
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