Ridout, Thomas

RIDOUT, Thomas (1828-1905), son of Thomas Gibbs Ridout of Toronto, was born there on 17 October 1828 and went to England to receive his education at King's College, London in 1847. It was there that he met Frederic Cumberland, with whom he was later to form a partnership in Toronto in 1850 (see list of works under Cumberland & Ridout). In early 1850 Ridout, whose training was in the field of architecture and civil engineering, returned to Toronto (British Colonist [Toronto], 9 April 1850, 2) and with the encouragment and support of his father joined Cumberland in opening an office there. The social connection to the Ridout family was important for Cumberland, but it is unclear what contribution Thomas made to the firm; virtually all the drawings and correspondence from the office during this period are from the hand of Cumberland (OA, Horwood Coll.). After the dissolution of the partnership in July 1852 the younger Ridout, with the advice of his father, obtained a position as assistant engineer of the Great Western Railway in Hamilton and lived there until 1857 when he entered a short-lived partnership with Sandford Fleming and Collingwood Schreiber. By 1875 he had moved to Ottawa to take up a position as an engineer with the federal Dept. of Railways & Canals. Ridout died in Ottawa on 3 July 1905 (obit. Morning Citizen [Ottawa], 4 July 1905, 2; biog. G. Simmins, Fred Cumberland: Building the Victorian Dream, 1997, 9-10, 73-4; inf. Stephen A. Otto, Toronto)