Rev. Canon John R. Ridley

1845 - 1915  (70 years)

• Name	John R. Ridley
  Prefix	Rev. Canon
  Born	26 Jan 1845	, England   [1, 2, 3, 4]
  Gender	Male
  Church	St. John's Anglican Church, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  	Canon Ridley established a Mission in Preston in 1888. Construction of St. John's Anglican Church in that community was begun in 1889 with dedication services held in 1890
  Immigration	1863	, Canada   [1]
  Immigration	1863	, Ontario, Canada   [2]
  Occupation	1886	Trinity Anglican Church, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  	minister
  Occupation	1891	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [3]
  	Minister
  Residence	1891	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [3]
  	Anglican
  Occupation	1901	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  	Clergyman
  Occupation	1911	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2]
  	Clergyman, Trinty Church
  Residence	1911	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2]
  	Anglican
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-65378
  Died	25 Nov 1915	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [5]
  	Cause: Peritonitis (1 week)
  Buried	Trinity Anglican Cemetery, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [4]
  Person ID	I65378	Generations
  Last Modified	7 Nov 2024

  
  

  Family 1	Caroline August "Carrie" Griffin,   b. 30 May 1847, Waterdown, East Flamborough Twp., Wentworth Co., Ontario ,   d. 30 Mar 1908, , York Co., Ontario, Canada  (Age 60 years)
  Married	30 May 1872	Waterdown, East Flamborough Twp., Wentworth Co., Ontario   [6]
  Children	1. Edith Ridley,   b. 14 Jan 1878, St. Catharines, Welland, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 8 Mar 1908, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 30 years)
  Last Modified	12 Nov 2024
  Family ID	F262664	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 2	Edith Thompson,   b. 11 Jul 1879, Ingersoll, Oxford County, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 1950  (Age 70 years)
  Married	20 Nov 1912	Ingersoll, Oxford County, Ontario, Canada   [7]
  Last Modified	12 Nov 2024
  Family ID	F262665	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  Trinity Anglican Church An Anglican missionary, Rev. Michael Boomer, arrived in Galt in 1840 to organize the community's first Anglican congregation. Services were held in the Township Hall until the fall of 1844 when a new stone church was completed. The building was opened and consecrated in October, 1844 by Dr. Strachan, Bishop of the Diocese of Toronto. Land for the church had been donated by the Dickson family and the cost of the building was assumed largely by the Dicksons and by Absalom Shade. The first Rector of Trinity Church, Rev. Michael Boomer, was to minister to the Galt congregation until moving to London in 1872 when he became Principal of Huron College and Dean of the Huron diocese. Dean Boomer was followed by Reverend Canons Brock (1872-1873), Curran (1873-1877), Hinks (1877-1886) and Rev. Canon Ridley who was rector from 1886 until his sudden death in November 1915. The first Parish Hall was built in 1855 through the generosity of Mr. Shade. When Mr. Shade died in 1862 his Will provided funds for the construction of a Rectory along with an endowment fund to provide for the rector's salary. The church was enlarged in 1856, and in 1868 the Parish Hall was made larger. The interior of the church was altered in 1885-1886 and the Norman Tower was added during the same time frame through the generosity of Matthew Wilks. Work began on rebuilding the Parish Hall with the laying of the cornerstone on July 17, 1911. Electric lighting was installed in 1916. The Parish Hall was further enlarged in 1956; the new Chapel of the Holy Trinity was built about the same time. Canon Ridley established a Mission in Preston in 1888. Construction of St. John's Anglican Church in that community was begun in 1889 with dedication services held in 1890. St. James Anglican Church in Hespeler also began as a Mission of Galt. Work began in 1919 on St. David's Mission at the corner of Pollock and Chalmers Street in Galt. The Mission, which began as a Sunday School, was dedicated by Archbishop Williams in April 1920 Waterloo County Churches A Research Guide To Churches Established Before 1900 By Rosemary Ambrose _________________________________ St. John's Anglican Church The first church services were held by Rev. Michael Boomer as a mission of Trinity Anglican Church, Galt. These early services were held in various locations: in homes, in the Royal Templars' Hall in the Erb Block, in the Lyceum Hall, and in the frame Lutheran church on King Street. A Sunday School which met in the CNR station house on Guelph Street was begun in 1880 by Mr. Robert Jell. Rev. Canon Ridley of Trinity in Galt organized a congregation in 1888. A church building was constructed in 1889 at the corner of Queen (now Queenston Road) and Argyle Streets and was dedicated in 1890 by Bishop Baldwin of the Diocese of Huron. The first baptism is reported to have taken place on May 17, 1890. Hespeler was attached to Preston until January 1, 1890 when the former became a separate parish. An extension to the church, which included the first Parish Hall, was built in 1908; a new Parish Hall was constructed in 1925; and in 1927 the church was declared free of debt and was consecrated by Archbishop Williams. The church was once more enlarged, and rededicated, in 1953. Waterloo County Churches A Research Guide To Churches Established Before 1900 By Rosemary Ambrose __________________________ THE HOLLOWED CHOCOLATE from Memoirs of a great detective: incidents in the life of John Wilson Murray (1904) compiled by Victor Speer A CALL to Galt awaited Murray on his return from Thessalon and the search for Maud Gillespie. Great excitement prevailed in the county of Waterloo. Many people were terrified; others were infuriated. A fiend was among them spreading death and planning the extermination of whole families. No one had any clue to the mysterious one's identity. It might be a stranger, it might be a neighbour; it might be a person of high estate or it might be a creature of low degree. None knew, and there were myriad suspicions. It was as if an avenging angel or a deadly devil were abroad in the county, lurking to slay and escape unseen, leaving no trace of the manner of death. A victim arose in the morning well and happy, and fell lifeless before noon without a sign of sickness or an intimation of the end. "The climax came when little Meta Cherry, the three-year-old daughter of John Cherry, a prominent mill-owner of Galt, died in a sudden and mysterious way," says Murray. "I went to Galt, a prosperous town near Berlin, in the county of Waterloo It was September 1888. Several persons were sick, as if a plague were upon them. I looked at the little child. She seemed startled, even in death, as if the hand that thrust her into eternity had seized her roughly and scared her. I talked with John Cherry, and he told me of a box of chocolate drops that had come through the mail. He showed me the box. A few of the chocolates were gone. Meta had eaten them. I took one out, and carefully scraped the chocolate off with a knife-blade. I found on the bottom of the chocolate a spot where a cavity had been bored, and this had been filled with a whitish substance, unlike the cream candy of the chocolate, and the hole then had been sealed deftly by glazing over the bottom with more chocolate. I took the contents of the box, and sent the chocolates to Professor Ellis for analysis. "I examined the box minutely. It revealed no clue, simply an ordinary pasteboard box. The wrapper in which it came showed a label pasted over an old address. The address on this label was printed with a soft lead pencil. I steamed the label to get at the address underneath it, but it had been washed out and scraped away, except for the one word 'Miss.' The package had been mailed in Galt. On inquiry I learned that similar packages had been received by the Rev. John Ridley, minister of the Church of England in Galt, and by Miss May Lowell and Mrs. Lowell, daughter and wife of Charles Lowell, proprietor of the Queen's Hotel in Galt. The boxes were quite small, and the inscriptions were alike as to the soft lead pencil. The packages had been dropped in the mail when no one was around, and the sender had vanished unseen. "Professor Ellis reported that the cavities in the chocolate drops were filled with strychnine. This established clearly the intent of the poisoner to kill many people, and wipe out a number of families. "I spent days gathering all the gossip of the town for generations back, hearing all the tales of trouble, and searching for some secret feud or some deadly hatred that would supply a motive for the deed. I ransacked ancestral closets for family skeletons, and I poked in all the after-dark affairs and twilight scandals since the days when the oldest inhabitants were gay young folk, fond of walking hand-in-hand through the gloaming. I ran down secrets that distressed dear old ladies, and left them in tears. I heard confessions of errors of youth that had lain locked in gentle bosoms for many kindly years; in fact, for a time I was an old Paul Pry Gadabout, poking my nose into other folk's business, until I felt I had sifted the lives and winnowed the chaff from the wheat in the collective career of the entire community. Every town has its chamber of horrors, where the sad episodes of indiscreet living are laid away to crumble in darkness, and the town of Galt has no more than its share of secrets of the passing generations. I found nothing in the long-gone years to throw light on the crime. There was no venerable hatred sufficient to inspire the murder of a little child. So I turned to later years, and for entanglements of recent months. "In the meantime, about the middle of October, I arrested Hannah Boyd at Thorold. Hannah was a fine-looking girl, and had been living as a domestic in the Queen's Hotel, of which Mr. Lowell was proprietor. Later she removed to Thorold, and worked for a family there as Hannah Bond. Her home was in Hamilton. I kept her a week, and interviewed her thoroughly, particularly as to the family life of the Lowells, and whether she knew of the receipt of the package of chocolates by Mrs. Lowell and Miss Lowell, and whether she ever had heard of any trouble with the Ridleys, the Cherrys, and the Lowells. I was satisfied after these interviews with Hannah that she had no guilty knowledge, and that she had nothing whatever to do with sending the packages. "I did develop promptly a strong suspicion as to the person who did send the poison packages. I searched the drug-stores through Canada, and examined the poison-books in all of them, and went so far as to describe to some of the druggists the person I suspected; but I found no clue that would hold in a trial as sufficient evidence to convict anybody. It is one of the most aggravating cases of my entire experience, yet I hold steadfast to my first impression."

  
  

• Sources

  [S259] Census - ON, Waterloo, Galt - 1901, Galt (Town/Ville) C-9 Page 8. [S572] Census - ON, Waterloo, Galt - 1911, Div. 18 Page 5. [S1800] Census - ON, Waterloo, Galt - 1891, Sec. 1 Page 155. [S2598] Cemetery - ON, Waterloo, Cambridge - Trinity Anglican Cemetery Internet Link. [South] Rev. Canon John RIDLEY/ Jan. 26, 1845 - Nov. 25, 1915/ " Blessed are the pure in heart/ for they shall see God"/ [West] RIDLEY/ Caroline August/ March 30th 1908/ Edith/ MARCH 8th 1908/ Fell asleep at the Rectory Galt/ [North] Edith wife of/ Rev. Canon J. RIDLEY/ 1879 - 1950/ [S2491] aaa Vit - ON - Death Registration, death certificate 032645 (1925). Name:Rev John Ridley Gender:Male Age:71 Birth Date:abt 1844 Birth Place:England Death Date:25 Nov 1915 Death Place:Waterloo, Ontario, Canada [S2488] aaa Vit - ON - Marriage Registration, marriage certificate. Name:Caroline A Griffin Age:26 Birth Year:abt 1846 Birth Place:Waterdown, Ontario Marriage Date:30 May 1872 Marriage Place:Wentworth, Ontario, Canada Father:James K Griffin Mother:A E Griffin Spouse:John Ridley [S2488] aaa Vit - ON - Marriage Registration, marriage certificate 015432 (1912). Name:John Ridley Age:67 Birth Year:abt 1845 Birth Place:England Marriage Date:20 Nov 1912 Marriage Place:Oxford, Ontario, Canada Father:John Christopher Ridley Mother:Eliza Bryant Spouse:Edith Thompson

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 26 Jan 1845 - , England Church - - St. John's Anglican Church, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Immigration - 1863 - , Canada Immigration - 1863 - , Ontario, Canada Occupation - minister - 1886 - Trinity Anglican Church, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Occupation - Minister - 1891 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - Anglican - 1891 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Occupation - Clergyman - 1901 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Occupation - Clergyman, Trinty Church - 1911 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - Anglican - 1911 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Married - 20 Nov 1912 - Ingersoll, Oxford County, Ontario, Canada Died - Cause: Peritonitis (1 week) - 25 Nov 1915 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Buried - - Trinity Anglican Cemetery, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  = Link to Google Earth