with effect against an attack from his own side, led by Mr. (later Sir) Henry Howorth and James Lowther [q. v. Suppl. II], but he was not otherwise molested. When the government was reconstituted after the general election (Sept. 1900) Sir Matthew, who was left a widower a year earlier, retired from political life. His last years were mainly spent at Blagdon.
Ridley was always active in the administration of his property. Throughout the north of England, where his influence was great, he was known as an extremely capable man of business. He was long a director of the North Eastern railway, and on the resignation of Sir Joseph Pease in 1902 he became chairman. He especially devoted himself to the development of the town of Blyth, which, originally part of the estates of the Radcliflfe family forfeited to the Crown after the rising of 1715, had descended to Ridley with the other estates of Matthew White. In the eighteenth century it was an important place of export for coal, and from 1854 was under the control of the Blyth Harbour and Dock Company; but owing to shallowness of entrance and increase in the size of ships, trade fell off, and in 1883 amounted to only 150,000 tons. Ridley, after succeeding to the baronetcy, carried a bill through parliament for the creation of a board of commissioners with powers to develop the place. As chairman of this board Ridley soon transformed the harbour and dock. Trade returned, and ultimately reached a yearly average output of four million tons of coal. As principal proprietor Ridley benefited largely, but he contrived that the inhabitants should share in the prosperity. He gave an open space for public recreation, which in the year of his death he opened as the Ridley Park. He had already given sites, either as a free gift or at a nominal rent, for a mechanics' institute, a church, and a hospital, and he was occupied until the end on a large scheme of planting trees in convenient places. Ridley was chairman of the Northumberland quarter sessions from 1873, and of the county council from 1889; but he resigned both offices in 1895, when he became home secretary. He was also president of the National Union of Conservative Associations, and was president of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1888, when the meeting was at Nottingham; he joined the society in 1869. He was D.L. and J.P. for Northumberland, Provincial Grand Master of Freemasons for Northumberland from 1885, and he commanded the Northumberland yeomanry from 1886 to 1895.
Ridley died at Blagdon on 28 Nov. 1904, and was buried there. He married on 10 Dec. 1873 Mary Georgiana, eldest daughter of Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, first Lord Tweedmouth; she died on 14 March 1899, leaving two sons and two daughters. Ridley was succeeded as viscount by his elder son, Matthew (b. 1874), conservative M.P. for Stalybridge from 1900 to 1904.
A portrait of Ridley by Sir Hubert von Herkomer is at Blagdon. A cartoon by 'Ape' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1881.
[The Times, and Daily Chronicle, 29 Nov. 1904; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; private information.]
RIEU, CHARLES PIERRE HENRI (1820–1902), orientalist, born at Geneva on 8 June 1820, was son of Jean Louis Rieu, first syndic of Geneva, whose memoirs he edited (Geneva, 1870). His mother was Marie Lasserre. On leaving school Charles entered the Academic de Geneve in Nov. 1835, where he went through courses both in philosophy and science. At Geneva he first took up Oriental languages and became the pupil of Jean Humbert, who had studied under the French orientalist Sylvestre de Sacy. In 1840 Rieu proceeded to the university of Bonn, where he was inscribed in the philosophical faculty (30 Oct.). There he read Sanskrit with Lassen, and Arabic with Freytag and Gildermeister, and at the same time he acquired a thorough mastery of German. In 1843, on completing his studies, he received the degree of Ph.D. and published his thesis entitled 'De Abul-Alæ poetæ arabici vita et carminibus secundum codices Leidanos et Parisiensem commentatio' (Bonn, 1843). After a visit to Paris, where he was elected a member of the Societe Asiatique on 8 Nov. 1844, he removed to St. Petersburg, and there in conjunction with Otto Boehtlingk he edited with German notes the text of 'Hemakandra's Abhidhanakintamani' or Sanskrit dictionary (St. Petersburg, 1847). While engaged on this work he visited Oxford for the purpose of transcribing the unique manuscript in the Bodleian library.
In 1847 Rieu settled in London, and thanks to his eminent qualifications as an Arabic and Sanskrit scholar he secured the post of assistant at the British Museum in the department of Oriental manuscripts. Henceforth he was engaged on the important task of cataloguing the museum collections. In 1867 he became first holder of the office
