Martin Wright Kidman Bird was born at 2 Warkworth Street, Cambridge on 30 September 1889, the second child and eldest son of William Kidman Bird, a merchant, and Maria Rebecca Martin, his wife. He was educated at the Perse School, Cambridge and at Tettanhall College. He graduated in arts from Emmanuel College, Cambridge and afterwards proceeded to St Bartholomew's Hospital. For a year or two he lived in Cambridge but when war began in 1914 he volunteered for active service and served with a field ambulance in France, Salonica, and Egypt, being afterwards sent home and acting as medical officer at the first London general hospital in Myatt's Park, Camberwell. He married Marjorie Carter on 9 July 1919 and settled in general practice at Faversham, Kent, where he was first house surgeon and then surgeon to the cottage hospital. He died very suddenly on 15 January 1933, survived by his wife and two sons, and was buried at Faversham.