Having been Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department for two years in Disraeli's administration, Sir Matthew Ridley (as he became when he succeeded his father as fifth baronet in 1877) was Financial Secretary to the Treasury in Lord Salisbury's interim government of 1885 to 1886.

In 1895, after the fall of Lord Rosebery's ministry, and having already failed in April of that year to be elected Speaker of the House of Commons, Ridley became Home Secretary, and held this post until his retirement in 1900.

He was that same year created Viscount Ridley and Baron Wensleydale, of Blagdon and Blyth in the County of Northumberland.

[3] Lord Ridley married Mary Georgiana Marjoribanks (1850 – 14 March 1909), daughter of the 1st Baron Tweedmouth and his wife, Isabella Weir-Hogg, on 10 December 1873.

[1] They were parents to five children: Lord Ridley died aged 62 at his Blagdon Hall home in Northumberland, and was buried there.