Henry Luke Attridge was the son of Henry Attridge and his wife Prudence Jane, born Little, and a brother of Alfred James Attridge*. In 1890 he published a 35 page pamphlet on apiculture at Wynberg under the title South African bees and their practical management in movable comb hives. It had a large circulation and promoted modern bee-keeping methods in South Africa. He gave demonstrations with live bees in a bee-tent at agricultural shows, and lectured on the topic at the Agricultural Schools at Stellenbosch and Somerset East. For example, in 1893 he came from Cape Town to present a week-long course of lectures at the School of Agriculture at Somerset East; the course was open also to the public and a good number of outsiders attended.
Later Attridge wrote up his expertise in a series of articles in the Agricultural Journal of the Cape of Good Hope (1908, Vol. 32, pp. 692-704; Vol. 33, pp. 46-56, 156-170, 307-317, and 438-460). The work was also published in book form as South African bee-keeping: a complete guide to the practical management of South African bees in movable comb hives (Cape Town, 1909). At this time he was Apicultural Adviser to the Cape Department of Agriculture. He then moved to Natal while his brother, Alfred J. Attridge*, became the leading authority on bees at the Cape.
Attridge was a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and from 1903 to 1907 made meteorological observations at his second order meteorological station at Sea Point for the Cape of Good Hope Meteorological Commission. He was survived by his wife Marjorie Edith, born Ireland.
