HMS Penelope, Ryder's flagship as Commander-in-Chief,
China Station Promoted to
rear admiral on 2 April 1866, Ryder became Second-in-Command of the Channel Squadron in 1868 and naval
attaché in
Paris in 1869. This was a particularly difficult time in Paris with the
French parliament voting to
declare war on the
Kingdom of Prussia in July 1870, the rapid mobilisation of the German coalition and then the French army being decisively defeated at the
Battle of Sedan in September 1870 and at the
Siege of Metz in October 1870 during the
Franco-Prussian War. Ryder became naval attaché to the Maritime Courts of Europe in February 1873. he became
Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth in November 1879. Ryder retired in 1882 and became a trustee of the Church of England Purity Society, an organisation founded by
Edward Benson, a former
Archbishop of Canterbury. Ryder wrote letters under the
pen name of XYZ drawing attention to the plight of young female models and the practice of men and women studying them together. Ryder was appointed a
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 24 May 1884 and was promoted to
Admiral of the Fleet on 29 April 1885. He suffered from depression and died on 30 April 1888 at age 67 after falling into the
River Thames at the
Vauxhall steamboat pier. there is a stained glass window to his memory in St Ann's Church in
Portsmouth. ==Family==