Jasper Ridley

rdf:langString Jasper Ridley

rdf:langString Jasper Godwin Ridley, FRSL (25 May 1920 – 1 July 2004) was a British writer, known for historical biographies. He received the 1970 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his biography of Lord Palmerston. Born in West Hoathly, Sussex, he was educated at Felcourt School, Magdalen College, Oxford, and the Sorbonne. He trained and practised as a barrister, being called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1945, before starting to write. During the Second World War, he served with an air defence unit and manned an anti-aircraft battery at Portsmouth, where the man next to him was killed by shrapnel. He served on St Pancras Borough Council from 1945 to 1949, and stood, unsuccessfully, as Labour Party candidate for Winchester in 1955 general election. He married, in 1949, Vera Pollak, who died in 2002 and with whom he had two sons and a daughter.