William Pett Ridge

[1] His published first novel was A Clever Wife (1895), but he secured his first striking success with his fifth, Mord Em'ly (1898), which showed his ability to draw humorous portraits of lower-class life.

In 1924, fellow novelist Edwin Pugh recalled his early memories of Pett Ridge in the 1890s: I see him most clearly, as he was in those days, through a blue haze of tobacco smoke.

This charitable zeal, and the fact that he established himself as the leading novelist of London life and character, led to him being marked as a natural successor of Dickens.

On 7 January 1914, in King's Hall, Covent Garden, he was a member of the jury in the mock trial of John Jasper for the murder of Edwin Drood.

William Pett Ridge died, aged 71, at his home, Ampthill, Willow Grove, Chislehurst, on 29 September 1930 and was cremated at West Norwood on 2 October 1930.