Mary Amelia Doyle was the daughter of Sir William and Lady Mary Doyle. Sir William, knighted in 1873, was the Chief Justice of the Bahamas from 1865 to 1875, Chief Justice of the Leeward Islands in 1875 and Chief Justice of Gibraltar from 1877 until his death in 1879.
Mary Doyle arrived in Western Australia with her mother on 29 June 1886. In 1888, she married Charles Barclay Kidson, a draughtsman and architect and later, the first Sergeant-at-Arms in the Western Australian Parliament. Their first son, Noel Doyle Kidson was born that year. Noel served at Gallipoli during World War One and returned to Western Australia where he became a stock and station agent before working as a crayfisherman. Mary Kidson's second son, Edric Doyle Kidson, born 1893, died during the landing at Gallipoli in April 1915.
Kidson wrote the words for two songs, Kitchener's Message to Australia and Memory Mine composed by Charles J. F. North. She was a regular contributor of poetry to newspapers and magazines in Western Australia during World War One and the 1920s. Her work was also published by the (Western Australian) State Recruiting Committee and read publicly on Anzac Day. She has published work as M.K. and as May Kidson.
She died on 9 August 1942, at the age of 84, after having been an invalid for some years.
