[1] For the first years of his life his father was rector of West Harling in Norfolk, moving to Cobham, Kent in 1860.
He was curate at Milborne Port in Somerset 1895 to 1897, where he gave a magic lantern talk on the voyage of HMS Challenger;[6] and was vicar of Staverton, Wiltshire from 1897 to 1905.
[5] At Milborne Port and Staverton, his parish work was supported by his sister Miss Ridley.
[2] In 1881 Ridley published a zoological paper on the expedition of HMS Alert off the coast of South America.
[13] In 1883 his paper was one of a number arising from Francis Day's collection on the 1882 survey cruise of HMS Triton off Scotland.
[15] Also in 1886, he published a paper in The Zoologist with his brother Henry Nicholas Ridley, Animal Life in High Latitudes on the Norway Coast.
[16] They published joint papers on the expedition's sponge specimens, and then Dendy and Ridley wrote for the Challenger report Part LIX (Volume XX.