Ridgeway, Sir (Joseph) West (1844–1930), army officer and under-secretary for Ireland, was born on 16 May 1844 at High Roothing, Essex, where his father, Joseph Ridgeway, was rector; he was the second son of his father's marriage to Eliza Letitia Chambers. He stated later in a memorandum that he had ‘Irish blood’ but ‘knew little of Ireland’ till shortly before he was appointed to a position there. Educated at St Paul's School, London, he obtained, at sixteen, a commission in the Indian army (Bengal infantry). In 1869 he was chosen by the viceroy, Richard Southwell Bourke (qv), 6th earl of Mayo, for civil employment. He proved a capable administrator and negotiator, playing a crucial role in the agreement of a treaty between England and Russia defining the north-western frontier of Afghanistan, for which he was promoted colonel (1887); he had already been made KCSI (22 July 1885).
On 15 October 1887, Sir West Ridgeway was formally appointed under-secretary to the chief secretary for Ireland, Arthur James Balfour (qv), nephew of the tory prime minister Lord Salisbury. During the four years that followed, ‘Balfour served as architect and Ridgeway as engineer of unionist policy in Ireland’ (Curtis, 187). At Balfour's suggestion, to prepare himself for his new role, Ridgeway had in early August toured incognito those Munster counties affected by the agrarian agitation known as the ‘Plan of Campaign’ led by home rule politicians, principally Timothy Harrington (qv), John Dillon (qv), and William O'Brien (qv). With little regard for the views of long-serving officials and lawyers Ridgeway pursued a policy of prosecuting offenders irrespective of their social position and relying on removable stipendiary magistrates to dispense summary justice in disturbed (‘proclaimed’) counties. The result was that Irish MPs and catholic priests were imprisoned. Of an independent mind and aloof from Irish party politics, he found catholic officials too much subjected to social pressures for him to rely upon them to perform ‘unpleasant duties’. He was created KCB in 1891. After the replacement of a tory government with a liberal one in August 1892 he found himself serving a chief secretary, John Morley (qv), who took away much of his responsibility. Late that year Ridgeway left Dublin castle for a special mission to the sultan of Morocco. He was afterwards governor of Ceylon (1896–1903).
Sir West Ridgeway married in 1881 Carolina Ellen Bewicke (d. 1907), younger daughter of Robert Calverley Bewicke of Coulby Manor, Middlesbrough, Yorkshire; they had at least one daughter. Ridgeway died in London 16 April 1930.