Ridley - in the Past
“Ridley Hall, Cambridge, is a very handsome edifice, erected by the Trustees… upon a freehold site, two acres at Newnham,” reads the bulletin announcing the opening of the Ridley Hall buildings on October 18, 1881. Since then, through good times and bad, in war and in peace, and during times of international crisis, Ridley Hall has been training for leadership in the Church of England – and beyond that into the wider Anglican Communion.
Leaders and clergy who have trained at Ridley have undertaken all sorts of ministries. Some have been great pioneers in the worldwide spread of the Gospel, while others have been bishops and statesmen of the church. Ridleians like John Stott have been expositors and teachers, J. B. Phillips was famous for his biblical paraphrases, while Timothy Dudley-Smith’s hymns are sung and appreciated the world over. Then there are the huge numbers of men and women whose ministry has been faithful, prayerful, and consistent in quiet, sometimes even hidden, places.
If the founders of Ridley were able to give us an assessment of the progress the college in the last 129 years, we suspect they would be more than satisfied by the way the seed they planted has flourished. Today’s Ridleians are male and female, coming from a diversity of backgrounds, and are of varying ages. They are being trained for everything from parish ministry to youth leadership, as pioneer ministers and as prayer warriors. The original vision lives on.
Reading the brochure announcing the opening of Ridley Hall which has already been quoted, we are told that the endeavour of the college would be to promote the spiritual progress of its students and to enable them to progress in their commitment to the Christian gospel. So many years later these remain among the core values of Ridley Hall and its various ministries.
