Henry Harcourt Ricketts (1917–2010) was born in Burma on 1 August 1917 to Alfred Arthur Hickman Ricketts and Annie Josephine Wells. In 1926 he was sent to England and attended school in Bury St Edmunds. From 1927 to 1936 he attended Warwick School. In 1936 Ricketts entered St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated Bachelor of Arts in mechanical sciences in 1939. During his time at Cambridge, Ricketts was part of the University Air Squadron and qualified as a pilot. At the start of the war Ricketts was called for service with the RAF. In late 1940 he came to Canada as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) and helped set up RCAF Station Carberry, where he spent the next three years before returning to England. Ricketts ended the war at the rank of Squadron Leader. Following the war, in 1947 he returned to Canada and settled in Calgary where he got a job with Dominion Bridge. Ricketts spent 12 years with Dominion and then in 1959 set up his own engineering firm. Major projects he worked on included the Calgary Tower and St Mary's Catholic Church Red Deer.

While stationed in Manitoba, Ricketts met Barbara Jeanette Yeager (1913–1981). The couple married in 1941 in Brandon. They had four children: Salli, Michael, Susan, and Peter. Ricketts died on 10 July 2010 just short of his 93rd birthday.