WILLIAM PETT RIDGE (1864-), English author, was born at Chartham, near Canterbury, and was educated at Marden, Kent, and at the Birkbeck Institute, London. He was for some time a clerk in the Railway Clearing House, and began about 1891 to write humorous sketches for the St James's Gazette and other papers. He secured his first striking success, in volume form, with Mord Em'ly (1898), an excellent example of his ability to draw humorous portraits of lower class life. His later books include A Son of the State (1899), A Breaker of Laws (1900), Lost Property (1902), Erb (1903), Mrs Caler's Business (1905), The Wickhamses (1906), &c.