The Most Accidental Discoveries In The World
Sir Nicholas Harold Lloyd Ridley (10 July 1906 – 25 May 2001) was an English ophthalmologist who invented the intraocular lens and pioneered intraocular lens surgery for cataract patients. Nicholas Harold Lloyd Ridley was born in Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, the son of Nicholas Charles Ridley and his wife Margaret, née Parker; he had a younger brother, Olden. Harold had a stammer which he was largely able to manage. As a child, he met and sat on the lap of Florence Nightingale, a close friend of his mother. He was educated at Charterhouse School before studying at Pembroke College, Cambridge from 1924 to 1927, and completed his medical training in 1930 at St Thomas' Hospital. Subsequently, he worked as a surgeon at both St Thomas' and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, specializing in ophthalmology. In 1938 Ridley was appointed full surgeon and consultant at Moorfields Hospital and later appointed consultant surgeon in 1946.