Matthew Ridley (14 November 1711 – 6 April 1778), of Heaton, Northumberland, was a barrister, country gentleman, brewer, coal magnate, owner of glass-works, and governor of a company of merchant adventurers in Newcastle upon Tyne.
[3] The young Ridley was educated at Westminster School, where he arrived in 1724, St John's College, Oxford, where he matriculated in December 1727, aged sixteen, and Gray's Inn, to which he was admitted in 1728.
By 1739, the year of his father’s death, he was governor of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Company of Merchant Adventurers and was also a coal magnate, the owner of a brewery and a glass-works, and a leader of the Newcastle business community.
[7] In 1735, Ridley married firstly, and secretly, Hannah, a daughter of Joseph Barnes of Newcastle, merchant, and they had one son.
[2] The only child of the first marriage, Nicholas Ridley, born in London on 5 July 1736, rose to the rank of major in a foot regiment,[2] but did not inherit the estate at Heaton.