^ w Henry Nicholas Ridley, c.m.g.,m.a.,f.r.s.,f.l.s. w ^ 
Biographical Notes 
Henry Nicholas Ridley was born at West Harling, Norfolk on 
the 10th December, i 8££. He was the son of the Rev. Oliver 
Matthew Ridley and Louisa Pole, younger daughter of William 
Stuart of Aldenham Abbey, Herts. Prominent historical person¬ 
ages figure in his ancestry, including Nicholas Ridley, Bishop 
of London, who was burnt at the stake in the reign of Queen 
Mary, William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, the Marquis of 
Bute, Prime Minister in the reign of George III and Lady Mary 
Wortley Montagu, friend of Addison and Pope. 
He was educated at Haileybury and Exeter College, Oxford. 
While still at school he decided to devote his life to the study of 
natural history in the tropics. He had no biological teaching at 
school, but has said that “the masters at Haileybury knew nothing 
about natural history; the boys had to teach them.” He pub¬ 
lished his first scientific paper entitled Mammals and Coleoptera 
of Haileybury at the age of 16. He graduated with Second Class 
Honours in Science in 1877 and was awarded the Burdett-Coutts 
Geological Scholarship. Most of his early papers were on entomo¬ 
logical subjects. He was appointed to the Botany Department of 
the British Museum in 1880 where he studied many tropical 
plants. This unexpected switch to botany was to have profound 
consequences for Malaya. In 1887 he explored the Island of 
Fernando de Noronha, Brazil, on behalf of the Royal Society and 
later published accounts of its botany, zoology and geology. 
Thus when Ridley was appointed in 1888 as the first scientific 
director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens he was well qualified 
for the tasks which lay ahead. He arrived in Singapore in Novem¬ 
ber 1888 and left on retirement in February 1912. Few people 
have accomplished so much in twenty-three years of tropical 
service or have completed their work as he has done on retire¬ 
ment. During his stay here he made expeditions to all parts of 
Malaya, often very remote, and to Borneo, Cocos and Christmas 
Islands, Java and Sumatra. Biographical details of the period are 
given in the notes on Exhibition of Ridley ana. He gave the 
first course of botany lectures in 190^ at the King Edward VII 
School of Medicine, now the Medical Department ol the Univer¬ 
sity of Malaya, and continued them until 1910. 
During his 43 years of retirement on pension Mr. Ridley has 
lived at 7 Cumberland Road, Kew. For the first few years after 
leaving Singapore he suffered from sprue and, despite ill-health, 
his indomitable spirit and absorbing interest in his work permit¬ 
ted him to write his £-volume Flora of Malaya, published 192 2— 
which has been the foundation on which botanical studies in 
Malaya have depended. The preparation of this work involved 
much research in the herbarium and library of the Royal Botanic 
Gardens at Kew. His health then improved; perhaps he permitted 
himself more leisure, but he continued to work regularly at Kew 
until a few years ago. Mr. Ridley is an enthusiastic ornithologist 
and was often seen bird-watching in the grounds of Queen’s 
Cottage at Kew. 
Mr. Ridley married for the first time during World War II; 
his bride was Lily Eliza Doran. He has been confined to his house 
since the winter of 19^2 and, until a serious illness towards the 
end of 1953 almost deprived him of his sight, he was busily 
engaged on his diaries and autobiography. Alas this will never be 
completed! Despite increasing deafness his zest for life remains 
and his memory is excellent. He talks with great enthusiasm of 
those days of long ago when he made his outstanding contribu¬ 
tion to Malaya’s economy and its natural history. 
Ridley was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1881 
and of the Royal Society in 1907. He was the second ‘Malayan’ to 
be elected an F.R.S., one of the greatest honours a scientist can 
receive. The first was Raffles. Earlier this year E. J. H. Comer, 
Assistant Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens 1929-46, 
was also elected F.R.S. As far as I know they are the only three 
people who have served in Malaya whose work has been recog¬ 
nised in this way. For his services to the country Ridley received 
the honour of a C.M.G. in 1911. Among the honours bestowed 
on him by learned societies and institutions have been the Rubber 
Planters Association’s Gold Medal in 1914, the Frank Meyer 
