Reginald Ridgway
Reginald Ridgway (1908-2002) of Marples Ridgway and Partners
2002 Obituary [1]
REGINALD RIDGWAY, who has died aged 93, was an outstanding civil engineer, responsible for the Hammersmith and Chiswick flyovers in west London and many other important projects.
In 1948 he founded the civil engineering company Marples Ridgway with Ernest Marples,.....
After reading Engineering at Imperial College, London, Ridgway worked for Charles Brand, and was soon agent on many London Underground projects, including the Cockfosters-Turnpike section of the Piccadilly Line, and St Paul's station booking hall and escalators on the Central Line. With Balfour Beatty he was in charge of the Green Park Underground station, and with Holloway Brothers he was chief engineer for the Empire Pool, Wembley. Ridgway first met Marples when he was working as a consultant for Kirk and Kirk, of which Marples was a director.....
A powerfully built 5 ft 9 in, Ridgway had considerable presence, backed by a belief in his ability. He was very good with his staff, who were intensely loyal to him. He had no discernible interests outside work. At home, while the rest of the family watched television, he would sit in an armchair in the same room, entirely absorbed in his paper work.
He married, first, Sybil Rhodes; they adopted two sons, one of whom is the Atlantic rower and explorer John Ridgway. She died in 1944. He married, secondly, in 1946, Olga Hewitt, who died in 1984; they had a son.