Ophthalmologist. Born Nicholas Harold Lloyd Ridley in Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire. Died in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
In WW2, he treated Royal Air Force casualties with eye injuries. He noticed that when splinters of acrylic plastic from aircraft cockpit canopies became lodged in their eyes, they did not trigger inflammatory rejection as did glass splinters. This caused him to suggest the use of artificial lenses made of Perspex. In 1950 he put an artificial lens permanently in place in an eye. In 1967 he set up the Ridley Eye Foundation, to raise funds for cataract surgery in developing countries, and to treat avoidable blindness.
Previously people with cataracts had the cloudy lens of the eye surgically removed and then needed to wear powerful thick glasses.
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Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk
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