The second son of Matthew White Ridley, 1st Viscount Ridley, Home Secretary in Lord Salisbury"s government, by his marriage to Mary Georgiana Marjoribanks, a daughter of Dudley Marjoribanks, 1st Baron Tweedmouth, Ridley was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, proceeding to Master of Arts in 1908.
Eton College; Balliol College.
He was also chairman of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery and a Trustee of the British Museum and of the National Gallery. In early life, Ridley twice stood for parliament as a Unionist: at the January 1910 election at Morpeth, and at the December 1910 election at Newcastle. He was called to the bar in 1912.
After the war he was Secretary of the Ministry of Labour"s Training Grants Committee from 1919 to 1920.
Entering the banking profession, Ridley rose to become chairman of Coutts & Company and of the National Provincial Bank. He was also President of the London Life Association and a director of the Standard Bank of South Africa and of the Bank of British West Africa.
In 1936 he was appointed to the Livestock Commission, and he also served on the Royal Commission on Equal Pay for Equal Work. Their son Jasper was the father of the economist Adam Ridley.
At the time of Ridley"s death his addresses were given in Who"s Who as 4 Gloucester Place, Portman Square, London W1, and Mockbeggars, Claydon, Suffolk.
Outside business, Ridley was a Justice of the Peace for Suffolk, a Fellow of Eton College, chairman of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery, a Trustee of the National Gallery, and from 1947 a Trustee of the British Museum.
In the 1930s, Ridley was a member of the Reorganisation Commission for Pigs and Pig Products (1932) and then of another for the Fat Stock Industry (1933–1934). He was a member of the Travellers, Beefsteak, and Turf clubs.
