Richard Ridgeway
Colonel Richard Kirby Ridgeway was an Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.Biography
Ridgeway was born on 18 August 1848 in Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland.
On 22 November 1879, he was 31 years old, and a captain in the Bengal Staff Corps, 44th Gurkha Rifles, British Indian Army, during the Naga Hills Expedition. On that date, during the final assault on Konoma, Eastern Frontier of India, under heavy fire from the enemy, Captain Ridgeway rushed up to a barricade and attempted to tear down the planking surrounding it to enable him to effect an entrance. While doing this he was wounded severely in the right shoulder.
He later achieved the rank of colonel.
He died at the age of 76 in Harrogate, Yorkshire on 11 October 1924.
