Arthur Grahame Brooke Ridley family papers, 1850-1971

Ridley was born in Tasmania and emigrated to the U.S. with his parents, Arthur Ernest Brooke Ridley and Mary Amelia Leechman in 1887. Arthur Ernest and Mary Amelia were born in London and had emigrated to Tasmania. Arthur Grahame married Margery Paulson Richardson in 1923. Arthur Ernest (d. 1919) was an electrical engineer and president of the Electric Motor Chair Company of San Francisco.

Mary Leechman's father, John Leechman (d. 1916), was a merchant in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) along with his brothers, William and Robert in the 1870s. John moved to San Francisco during the 1880s and was an agent for selling tea from India and Ceylon. He was later secretary of the Soulsby Gold Mining Company and the Hamilfield Mining Company.

From 1903-1906 Arthur Grahame designed and built custom manufactured automobiles. He worked as an engineering consultant from 1911-1932, designing and building over 20 fruit and vegetable dehydration plants. Ridley was also owner of the Speed Carburetor Company from 1912-1916. Ridley designed warehouses and processing plants for the California Walnut Growers Association (later the Diamond Walnut Growers, Inc.) from 1934-1936 and the California and Hawaiian Sugar Corporation from 1936-1940. From 1940-1946 he was a systems analyst for Lockheed Corporation and was in Northern Ireland from 1942-1944.