This article was published in Australian Dictionary of
Biography, Volume 2, (MUP), 1967 John Ridley (1806-1887),
miller, inventor and preacher, was born on 26 May 1806 at West
Boldon, near Sunderland, Durham, England, the son of John and
Mary Ridley, who were cousins. His formal education was little
more than that of a village school, but it was augmented by an
insatiable love of books and a remarkable memory. Although
baptized into the Church of England he came early under the
influence of Wesleyan Methodism. He began preaching at 18 and at
23 was a recognized local preacher in the Sunderland circuit. At
15 he took over the milling business that his mother had managed
since his father's death in 1811. After his mother's death in
1835 he married Mary Pybus, the daughter of a boarding school
proprietor at West Boldon. In 1839 Ridley left for South
Australia in the Warrior with his wife and two children. Soon
after arrival he lost a child through her clothes catching fire.
He took over the flour-mill of the Sou