Born on 30 November 1878 at Enfield, the fourth child and third son of William Stephen Ridewood and Anne Foreman his wife, he was educated at Enfield Grammar School, where his father was headmaster. He studied medicine at the London Hospital, and won gold medals at the BS examination in 1906 and at the MS in 1909. He emigrated to Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia in 1910, came back on active service with the Canadian Army Medical Corps during the war of 1914-18, and then returned to Victoria, where he made a great reputation as a surgeon. During the war he served at Mudros in the Gallipoli campaign, at Wimereux and at No 1 Canadian Casualty Clearing Station in France, and at the Cliveden Hospital near Maidenhead; he was finally a surgical consultant with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In the later part of his life he practised at 422 St Charles Street, Victoria BC, and was well known throughout western Canada. He was a small, lithe man, energetic, lively and cheerful, always eager to learn new methods and to apply them. He married in 1913 Mary Wedd, who survived him with a son and three daughters. Ridewood came to England in 1952 seeking relief from malignant disease. He died in London on 8 November 1952 aged 73.