since, either wholly or in part, been carried into effect. Among these latter was the question of giving greater opportunities of advancement to the natives of India in the public service, a policy which had been advocated by Ricketts at an early period of his career.
Before his appointment to this duty Ricketts had declined Lord Dalhousie's offer in 1854 of the post of chief commissioner in the Nagpur territory, then recently brought under direct British rule. In the same year he was appointed provisional member of the council of the governor-general; but in March 1857, hearing that the military member of council, Sir John Low [q. v.], was likely to resign his post, Ricketts, with a self-abnegation rare in any sphere of life, and with a prophetic foreboding of the struggle which was about to shake the Indian empire to its centre, at once placed his provisional appointment at the disposal of the chairman of the court of directors, in case it should be deemed advisable to appoint a military man to the vacancy. Sir James Outram [q. v.] was appointed, and Ricketts succeeded to a later vacancy. In December 1858 he declined Lord Canning's offer of the lieutenant-governorship of the North-Western Provinces. In May 1859, fourteen months after he had joined the council, his health suddenly broke down under pressure of work, and he was ordered to the Nilgiri hills to recruit; but, his illness returning after his resumption of work, he resigned his seat in January 1860, and finally left India. On both of these occasions the governor-general, Earl Canning, expressed great regret at the loss of his services [see Canning, Charles John, Earl Canning]. ‘Of all the colleagues,’ Canning wrote in 1859, ‘with whom I have been associated in public service, either here or elsewhere, I have had none whose earnest, high-minded, and able co-operation has been more agreeable to receive or more useful than yours.’ It was while serving in the governor-general's council that Ricketts suggested to Lord Canning, in order to meet the heavy stress of work which followed the mutiny, the quasi-cabinet arrangement still in force, under which each member of council takes charge of a department, disposing of all details, and only referring to the governor-general matters of real importance and questions involving principles or the adoption of a new policy.
During the twenty-six years that Ricketts survived his retirement from the public service, his interest in Indian affairs continued unabated. From time to time he published pamphlets on the leading Indian questions of the day, in which were recorded the results of his long administrative experience. In May 1866 he was created a knight commander of the star of India. He died at Oak Hill Grove, Surbiton, on 25 Feb. 1886, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and was buried in the churchyard at Twyford, near Winchester, where some of his earlier years had been spent.
Ricketts was an admirable specimen of the best type of Haileybury civilian. Going out to India at the age of nineteen, fresh from the influences of Winchester and the traditions of the East India College, he was throughout his long service animated by an enthusiastic devotion to duty, was impressed by deep sympathy with the native races, and was keenly alive to the responsibilities of British rule. As an instance of the esteem and affection with which he inspired the natives who served under him, it may be mentioned that before his death he expressed his desire that his name and the date of his death, with the words, ‘He never forgot Balasor and the Ooriahs (Uriyas),’ should be inscribed on the monument put up to his wife at Balasor; and that on steps being taken to carry out his wish, the native officials at Balasor, whose fathers and grandfathers had served under him, begged permission to bear the expense of the inscription.
Ricketts married, in 1823, Jane, eldest daughter of Colonel George Carpenter of the Bengal army. She died at Balasor in 1830, leaving one son, George H. M. Ricketts, C.B., late of the Bengal civil service, and three daughters.
[This article is based partly on a record of services submitted to the secretary of state for India shortly before Sir Henry Ricketts's death, in compliance with a requisition made by Lord Randolph Churchill, and partly on personal knowledge.]
RICKHILL, Sir WILLIAM (fl. 1378–1407), justice of the common pleas, was a native of Ireland. In 1379 and 1380 he acted as English attorney for the Earl of Ormonde. He had already settled in Kent, where he acquired the manor of Ridley, between Rochester and Sevenoaks. He served from 26 Feb. 1378 on commissions ‘de walliis, fossatis, &c.’ in districts east of London and in Kent. In one of these commissions Rickhill acted with Sir William Walworth, who in his will, dated 20 Dec. 1385, made him an executor, with a legacy of 10l. He had then been for some time one of the royal serjeants at law, and five years later, on 20 May 1389, Richard II raised him to the
