Richard Ridge: Trader and Bailiff
in Early Colonial NSW
| Description Readers' Comments News and Updates Publication Details To Purchase |
| "the intriguing story of a bailiff who arrived in NSW in 1791 as a convict" Richard Ridge enters the pages of documented history in 1789. Literate and numerate, and twenty-three years old, he was on the move towards London. His family of origin, yeomen farmers, appeared quite well-to-do. Travelling with his ass, he was about to be caught up in a crime. Innocently, it seems. ‘On the move’ he remained for the rest of his life, being transported to Australia with the Third Fleet and eventually spending much of his time on horseback, serving as bailiff, an officer of the court system in New South Wales. As one of the colony's earliest bailiffs, a tough job which he fulfilled without any reported trouble, his story shines a spotlight on the lives of ordinary people at that time. Richard worked for some years for the Provost-Marshal, William Gore, who arrived in Sydney with Governor Bligh in August 1806 and, in that role, enforced the arrest of John Macarthur. Thus a significant feature of Richard's life was his close association with the upheaval leading to the Rum Rebellion in January 1808 and the insurrection period when the NSW Corps was in charge of the colony through to the start of 1810. Gore was ex-military, from the Irish landed gentry. How did Richard come by this job? Richard, although from Oxfordshire, was demonstrably comfortable around the Irish, with Irish landed gentry connections of his own, and it helped that he could read, write and handle numbers, was sober, reliable and a strong supporter of Bligh. Before and after his role as bailiff, Richard was also a trader of goods, surviving the clutches of the NSW Corps and their cronies. His trials and tribulations emerged in a close study of his transactions as plaintiff and defendant in the civil court system in the early 1800s and later. His strong 'protector' traits added another interesting theme to his story. From April 1806 he came into regular contact with his third partner and first wife, young Margaret Forrester, when he rented McKellar Farm, next door to the Forresters. Her early life is recounted in my book about her parents, ‘Sentenced to Debt: Robert Forrester, First Fleeter’, (available through BookPOD). Later, with his wife and children, he lived and worked as a constable and settler in Lower Portland Head and up the Colo River, still the largest wilderness area in New South Wales, yet so close to Sydney. Richard led a very different lifestyle to most early settlers of the Hawkesbury district near Sydney, and this book adds fascinating new detail to the stories of this largely forgotten part of Australian colonial history. |  |
Readers' Comments
Yet to come. The book is in its final draft form.
News and Updates
6 Apr 2023: Based on the life led by Richard in early New South Wales, I'm tempted to name this book 'Richard Ridge, Ridgy-Didge'. What do you think? Your feedback is welcome.
16 Nov 2023: I've been busy on full-time Gran duty in Sydney in 2023, helping my daughter with her four teenagers. Unfortunately, this means you'll have to wait until 2024 for Richard's story.
12 Dec 2024: This year ongoing family dramas have resulted in further unavoidable delays with Richard's story. It has now been edited down to an acceptable length, and I've visited Windsor and the Hawkesbury several times. However I'm still waiting for a response from the Local Historian to a specific question of mine about a particular landholding. I'm hoping her local knowledge will prove significant in Richard's story.
2 Mar 2025: Not wishing to rely on guess work, I have employed a researcher who specialises in NSW Land Titles to investigate two specific blocks of land where I think Richard had an important long-term association as a farmer. Once the research report is received I'll be in a position to proceed with the work of actually publishing the book.
10 Jun 2025: Very happy to say that, after around 15 years of on-again, off-again work, I've finally fitted together the missing pieces of the Richard Ridge jigsaw puzzle and have completed the final draft of his book. After rigorous culling, it's considerably shorter than the book about his father-in-law 'Sentenced to Debt: Robert Forrester, First Fleeter'. Richard's life was very different from Robert's. Please get in touch with me by mail, email, telephone or Instagram if you are interested in joining the mailing list, to be informed when the new book becomes available. (For reasons not understood by me, Facebook has recently denied me access to my own page, but I hope to have that problem rectified before long.)
12 Jul 2025: My new title for the book is 'Richard Ridge: Trader and Bailiff in Early Colonial NSW', a better depiction of the historical context of this non-fiction book. But I still think of Richard as 'Richard Ridge: Ridgy-Didge', a dinky-di person, trying to do the right thing by others.
20 July 2025: To save space in the book, I have published separate stories on my RobertForresterFirstFleeter blog about Catherine Ridge and Mary Ann Ridge, the daughters of Richard's first partner Mary.
Publication Details
| Published | Louise Wilson, South Melbourne, VIC |
| Format | Paperback |
| ISBN | 978 ......... |
| Available | To be advised. Contact the author to join the waiting list. |
To Purchase
Online through - To Be Advised. Contact the author to join the waiting list.