[1] Ridgeway was born 6 August 1853, in Ballydermot in King's County, Ireland,[2] the son of Rev.

He was educated at Portarlington School and Trinity College, Dublin, then studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge before entering Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he completed the Classical tripos in 1880.

[4] He contributed articles to the Encyclopedia Biblica (1903), Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) and wrote The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards (1892), and The Early Age of Greece (1901) which were significant works in Archaeology and Anthropology.

[8] In 1880, Ridgeway married Lucinda Maria Kate Samuels in Rathdown, County Dublin.

Their daughter Lucy Marion Ridgeway (1882–1958) married economist John Archibald Venn in 1906.