Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/203

 schools. In 1832 he entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, passing thence (1834) into the royal artillery as second lieutenant. The following year he was transferred to Quebec, receiving promotion as first lieutenant in 1837, after which he returned to England, and was ordered to Jamaica, being however invalided back a year later.

In 1839 Riddell became identified with scientific research. The Royal Society and the British Association were deeply interested in the prosecution of inquiries in terrestrial magnetism and in meteorology, and it was decided to establish stations in certain colonies for the advancement of these objects. Riddell was selected for the post of superintendent of a magnetical and meteorological observatory at Toronto, subject to the instructions of the ordnance department and under Major (afterwards General Sir Edward) Sabine, R.A. [q. v.]. At the end of a year Riddell was invalided home, but he had done excellent service. Soon after, at Sabine's instance, he was appointed assistant superintendent of Ordnance Magnetic Observatories at the Royal Military Repository, Woolwich. During his four years' tenure of this post he assisted Sabine in the reduction of magnetic data and the issue of results of observations made by the directors of the affiliated observatories (see Toronto Observations, vol. i. Introduction; and Rept. Brit. Assoc. 1841, p. 340, and p. 26, 'Sectional Transactions'). He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 13 Jan. 1842. In 1844 the admiralty published Riddell's 'Magnetical Instructions for the Use of Portable Instruments adapted for Magnetical Surveys and Portable Observatories, and for the Use of a Set of Small Instruments for a Fixed Magnetic Observatory.' Subsequently he was placed on the staff at Woolwich. During the Crimean war he was deputy assistant quartermaster-general, and of him General Palliser reported that 'To his untiring energy throughout the late war the successful embarcation of the artillery without casualty and the provision of all the necessary supplies are to be mainly attributed.' Riddell served in the Indian Mutiny in 1857–8, commanding the siege artillery of Outram's force at the siege and capture of Lucknow, and the artillery of Lugard's column at the engagement of the Tigree; he was three times mentioned in despatches, was made a C.B., and received the medal with clasps. He retired in 1866 with the rank of major-general. Afterwards he lived quietly at Chudleigh, Devonshire. There he owned a farm, which he managed, and also engaged in parochial and educational work. He died at his home, Oaklands, Chudleigh, on 25 Jan. 1903, and was buried at Chudleigh. He married on 11 Feb. 1847 Mary (d. 1900), daughter of Sir Hew Dalrymple Ross [q. v.], and had issue one daughter.

 RIDDELL, . CHARLOTTE ELIZA LAWSON, known as (1832–1906), novelist, born on 30 Sept. 1832 at the Barn, Carrickfergus, co. Antrim, was the youngest daughter of James Cowan of Carrickfergus, by his wife Ellen Kilshaw. After her father's death Charlotte lived with her mother at Dundonald, co. Down, the scene of her novel 'Bema Boyle' (1884) and then came to London. Her mother died in 1856, and in 1857 Miss Cowan married J. H. Riddell, a civil engineer, of Winson Green House, Staffordshire. Her husband soon lost his money, and Mrs. Riddell began to write for a livelihood.

Her first novel, 'The Moors and the Fens,' appeared in 1858 (3 vols.; 2nd edit. 1866). She issued it under the pseudonym of F. G. Trafford, which she only abandoned for her own name in 1864. Novels and tales followed in quick succession, and between 1858 and 1902 she issued thirty volumes. The most notable is perhaps 'George Geith of Fen Court, by F. G. Trafford' (1864; other editions 1865, 1886), for which Tinsley paid her 800l. It was dramatised in 1883 by Wybert Reeve, was produced at Scarborough, and was afterwards played in Australia. From 1867 Mrs. Riddell was co-proprietor and editor of the 'St. James's Magazine,' which had been started in 1861 under Mrs. S. C. Hall [q. v.]. She also edited a magazine called 'Home' in the sixties, and wrote short tales for the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and Routledge's Christmas annuals. Her short stories were less successful than her novels.

Her husband died in 1880. Despite harass and misfortune her twenty-three years of married Life were happy. After 1886 she lived in seclusion at Upper Halliford, Middlesex. She was the first pensioner of the Society of Authors, receiving a pension of 60l. a year in May 1901. She died at Hounslow on 24 Sept. 1906. There were no children of the marriage.

Mrs. Riddell, by making commerce the theme of many of her novels, introduced a 