Roy Ridley

Ridley was the son of William Dawson Ridley, a Church of England clergyman, Rector of Orcheston St Mary, Wiltshire, and his wife Jane Elizabeth Rutherford.

[1][2] His grandfather, Thomas Dawson Ridley, a civil engineer of Coatham, Yorkshire, died in 1898, leaving a substantial fortune.

He spent 1930–1931 as a visiting professor at Bowdoin College under the auspices of the Tallman Foundation.

He was a lecturer at Bedford College, University of London, from 1948,[1] where he earned a Doctorate of Humane Letters.

[5] Dorothy L. Sayers based the physical description of her character Lord Peter Wimsey (the archetypal British gentleman detective) on that of Ridley after seeing him read his Newdigate Prize-winning poem "Oxford" at the Encaenia ceremony in July 1913.