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Remembrance
- The Yorkshire Regiment, First World War Lieutenant Stewart Gordon RIDLEY Close window to return to main page |
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Lieutenant Stewart Gordon RIDLEY.
17th Squadron Royal Flying Corps, formerly 12th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment.
Son of Thomas William and Emily Gordon Ridley, of Willimoteswick, Redcar.
Killed 18 June 1916. Aged 19.
Buried CAIRO WAR MEMORIAL CEMETERY.
See The Ridley Memorial,
Redcar
We are very grateful to Avalon Eastman of the Oundle
School Roll of Honour website for permission to use the photo of Lieutenant
Ridley. She also provides the following biographical information;-
Stewart Gordon Ridley was the second son of Mr T.W,. Ridley and the late Mrs
Ridley of Willimoteswick, Redcar where he was born on 6th July 1896.
He came to Oundle (Grafton House) from Mr Roscoe’s School of Harrogate
in May 1910. Ridley played several times for the XV in 1913. Leaving in April
1914 he was preparing for a business career when war came. With his brother
he enlisted (September 1914) in the 4th Yorkshire Regiment. In July he transferred
to the Flying Corps and went to France in August 1915 as an observer. Returning
to England in December he took his Pilot’s Certificate.
He died in the Libyan Desert. Ridley and another officer, with a mechanic,
lost their way in the desert and Ridley’s machine being damaged, the
other officer flew back in an effort to find H.Q. Ridley and the mechanic
were not found until it was too late and it seems clear that in order to give
his companion a chance of surviving (their water supply failing), he shot
himself.
Royal Aero Club Aviators’ Certificates, 1910-1950, are available on Ancestry.co.uk. The data for Stewart Gordon Ridley in this collection includes;-
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