RIDGE, Jonathan (1621-1701), of Watergate Street, St Peter, Chester, Cheshire.

A younger son of a Salford draper, Ridge was apprenticed to the Chester merchant and draper William Johnson in 1637.25Cheshire RO, ZMAB/1, f. 116v. Ridge’s father may have been a man of puritan convictions, for he joined Richard Holland* and Charles Worsley* in a petition to the Commons from Manchester in the mid-1640s, requesting the settlement of a ‘godly preaching ministry’ in the parish.26Greater Manchester Co. RO, E7/28/5/8a.

Ridge obtained his freedom of Chester in 1646, and that same year he joined the Chester Merchants Company, serving as one of its wardens in 1646-7 and as master of the company in 1651-3.27Chester History and Heritage Centre, 942.714/338.632MER. On 22 August 1650, he was commissioned as a captain of foot in the Cheshire militia regiment of Colonel Robert Duckenfeild*; and in October of that year, he was named to the Chester militia commission.28CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 366, 510. When one of Chester’s officeholders refused to take the Engagement (abjuring monarchy and the House of Lords) following his elevation to the aldermanic bench in the summer of 1651, the council of state recommended that Ridge – who had already served as a common councillor and sheriff – be appointed in his place.29CSP Dom. 1651, p. 329. This proposal was reported to the House by Sir William Brereton* on 15 August and duly passed in the form of a resolution.30CJ vii. 1a. However, perhaps because no order was made to this effect, or through sheer stubbornness on the part of the corporation, Ridge had to wait until February 1655 before he was appointed an alderman. He had further cause for resentment the following month, when Whitehall commissioned him as ensign rather than captain of the Chester company of militia foot.31Cheshire RO, ZAB/2, f. 110v. His fellow officer John Griffith III* claimed that Ridge was ‘discontent that he hath not command himself’ and suspected that he might try to undermine the proceedings of the Cheshire militia commission set up in the wake of the 1655 royalist uprisings.32TSP iii. 300.

It was apparently in partnership with Griffith – who had been made an alderman in 1658 – that Ridge stood as a candidate for Chester in the elections to the third protectoral Parliament of 1659. According to one report of the election, the ‘commonalty wholly stood’ for Ridge and Griffith, but most of the senior-officeholders backed Alderman Richard Bradshaw (brother of Alderman Edward Bradshaw*) and the city’s Presbyterian recorder John Ratcliffe*. On election day, in mid-January, Ratcliffe made an impassioned speech in which he warned the voters that ‘one of those men which they looked upon for burgess, if they chose him (meaning Ridge), would rather be for their undoing then otherwise and that he aimed and sought the destruction of the city then the maintenance of its privileges’.33Supra, ‘Chester’. What exactly Ridge had done to provoke this attack upon his civic loyalty is not clear. That most of the senior officeholders disliked him personally or politically is evident from the mayoral election the preceding autumn, when Ridge had received the highest number of votes from the freemen only to be rejected by the aldermen, fifteen to five, in favour of the freemen’s second choice.34Cheshire RO, ZAF/37b/2. Having been denied their favourite candidate as mayor the freemen were in no mood to compromise in the parliamentary election, and they duly elected the two junior aldermen over their more senior colleagues.35Supara, ‘Chester’. Ridge received no committee appointments in this Parliament and made no recorded contribution to debate.

The divisions among the senior officeholders were even more starkly revealed as a result of Sir George Boothe’s* royalist-Presbyterian rebellion in the summer of 1659, when Chester was occupied for three weeks by the rebels. In contrast to Ratcliffe and several other aldermen, Ridge refused to assist the rebels in any way; and in the aftermath of Boothe’s defeat he emerged as the leader of the city’s pro-Rump interest.36SP23/263, ff. 113-14; A. M. Johnson, ‘Some Aspects of the Political, Constitutional, Social and Economic History of the City of Chester 1550-1662’ (Oxford Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1971), 346-8. In a petition and letter to the Rump in September 1659, the Chester ‘well-affected’, with Ridge at their head, urged Parliament to remodel the corporation and to remove from office and punish the mayor, recorder and those of the aldermen who had been complicit in Boothe’s proceedings.37Harl. 1929, ff. 10-11v, 27, 30v-31. After the petition was read in the House on 17 September, MPs voted that Chester corporation be dissolved and ‘disincorporated’, that the city charter be declared null and void and that Chester lose its jurisdictional privileges as a distinct county in its own right.38CJ vii. 780b. Ratcliffe’s warning to the freemen earlier that year must now have rung in their ears.

The dissolution of the Rump in October 1659 ensured that none of these threats to Chester corporation materialised. Nevertheless, those responsible for endangering the city’s ancient liberties in this way would not have won any popularity contests with the citizens. It is no surprise, therefore, that ‘many freemen well affected to the ancient government of the city’ petitioned the corporation in May 1660, requesting that

such persons who have willfully and maliciously contrived such destructive practices against the good and well-being of this city for their own lucre and ambitious ends and do still continue in their obstinacy, not having given just satisfaction for their grand offence, may be discharged from ... public trust in the city and others chosen in their places who may ... serve the city more faithfully.39Cheshire RO, ZAF/37c/25.

On receipt of this petition on 11 May, the corporation voted unanimously to remove Ridge from his office as alderman.40Cheshire RO, ZAB/2, f. 127. Some of those who petitioned against Ridge may also have disliked his godly religious convictions – as revealed in his decision in 1661 to have his son John baptised not by his parish minister but in the house of the rector of Holy Trinity, Chester – the soon-to-be-ejected Thomas Upton.41Holy Trinity Chester Par. Reg. ed. Farrall, 112; Calamy Revised, 500.

Within a few years of his removal from office in Chester, Ridge had transferred his main place of residence, and probably his business as well, to Manchester, where he owned a house and land in Deansgate.42Lancs. RO, QSP/336/30; QSP/437/10; Manchester Constables’ Accts. ed. J.P. Earwaker (Manchester, 1892), ii. pp. 199, 219, 225, 244, 262; Manchester Ct. Leet Recs. ed. Earwaker (Manchester, 1887), v. p. 246; (Manchester, 1888) vi. p. 186. He probably spent most of his remaining years in the Manchester area. He died in the winter of 1700-1 and was buried at St Mary, Stockport on 16 January.43St Mary, Stockport par. reg. In his will, he bequeathed to each of his surviving children just one shilling each, ‘because they have every one of them had considerable portions from me before now in my life time’. His personal estate was valued at a mere £35 14s.44Cheshire RO, WS 1701, will of Jonathan Ridge. He should not be confused, as he sometimes is, with another draper residing in St Peter’s, one John Ridge (apparently no relation), who died in 1663.45St Peter, Chester par. reg.; Cheshire RO, WC 1663, will of John Ridge; VCH Cheshire, v. pt. 1, 127. Ridge was the first and last of his line to sit in Parliament.