Charles Ridgeway
Charles John Ridgeway was the Bishop of Chichester from 1908 to 1919.
Ridgeway was born into an ecclesiastical family: his father, Joseph Ridgeway, was Vicar of Christ Church, Tunbridge Wells. He was educated at St Paul's and Trinity College, Cambridge. Ordained in 1866, he spent a Curacy at Christ Church, Tunbridge Wells before becoming Vicar of North Malvern, Rector of Buckhurst Hill, Vicar of Christchurch Lancaster Gate and Rural Dean of Paddington. From 1891-1894 he was a member of the London School Board, representing the Marylebone Division.
After two years as Dean of Carlisle he was appointed to the Episcopate as Bishop of Chichester in 1908. After his death his wife presented his Pectoral Cross to the Cathedral Library and commissioned a memorial to him which can be seen in the nave. He had become a Doctor of Divinity.
Ridgeway was a Freemason, under the jurisdiction of the United Grand Lodge of England. Although he never served in the prestigious role of Grand Chaplain of UGLE, in 1897 he was granted the honorific rank of Past Grand Chaplain in recognition of his services to English Freemasonry, as part of a series of similar honorary promotions intended to mark the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria.
