6' 2" tall, wears pince-nez hooked on with ginger beer wire. He has worked as a school master. He once lived in Markham Square off the King's Road, Chelsea * and later lodged in Arundel Street * off Leicester Square.
Much given to arcane expressions such as 'Laddie', 'Upon my Sam' and 'Old Horse', he wears a bright yellow mackintosh in all weathers, for no apparent reason.
His father, Henry, was once vicar of Much Middlefold.
Married to Millicent, he started a chicken farm in Dorset with her and friend Jerry Garnet but having no idea how to do it, ran into problems and debt. Millicent has an Aunt Elizabeth, Lady Lakenheath, of Thurloe Square, in Kensington. (Love Among the Chickens)
In his second incarnation in short stories, his wife only appears before their marriage in Ukridge Rounds a Nasty Corner.
Always looking for quick and easy money, he recruited Wilberforce Billson, who he dubbed 'Battling' Billson, as a boxer. Unfortunately, Billson proved a reluctant fighter, feeling sympathy for his opponents and unwilling to fight without personal provocation.
That he manages to keep body and soul together is proof that some of his schemes work. His later schemes appear to show greater success than some of the earlier ones - perhaps he is learning, perhaps he is just luckier. His adventures included: training dogs for the musical-halls; plotting an insurance scam; getting engaged but not to the future Mrs Ukridge; speaking at a Parliamentary election; promoting boxing matches; trying to start a gambling den; selling stolen goods; and parrot rustling.
Ginger beer wire was used to hold the cork tops onto bottles of fizzy drinks. You still see it on champagne bottles, but presumably that's a better class of wire.
* Wodehouse lived in Markham Square in 1900. His friend Bill Townend lodged in Arundel Street at PG's expense after giving him the basis of the first Ukridge story Love Among the Chickens. In Author! Author! PG tells of a letter from Townend in 1905 in which he refers to an acquaintance, Craxton, who tried to run a poultry farm in Devon, wore a yellow mac and pince-nez held on with ginger-beer bottle wire. The character was born. In a letter to Townend (August 1924, same collection) PG comments that he wanted to write two stories about how Ukridge got married.
To confuse the issue Frances Donaldson, in her biography, reports a letter in which PG claims that Ukridge was based on someone (not named) that he used to run about London with from 1903 onwards. Possibly Ukridge was an amalgam of both.