Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/337

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Ward
331
Ward

on 22 Jan. 1689 (ib. i. 352). At the next election, in February 1690, Ward and the other three whig candidates lost their seats (Sharpe, London and the Kingdom, ii. 533). He was appointed colonel of the blue regiment of the trained bands on 31 March 1689 (Luttrell, p. 516), and on 19 April a commissioner for managing the customs (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1689–90, p. 53). He lost his colonelcy in 1690, the church party being once more in a majority (ib. ii. 25), but was re-elected on the ascendency of the whigs in 1691 (ib. iii. 283). On 24 March 1695–6 he was compelled through illness to relinquish his office of commissioner of customs, but recovered sufficiently to resume his duties on 9 April (Luttrell, iv. 34, 42).

Ward died on 10 July 1696, and was buried in the south corner of the chancel of St. Mary Abchurch, where a mural monument to his memory still exists (Stow, Survey, 1720, bk. ii. p. 184). His will, dated 4 March 1695–6, and proved in the prerogative court of Canterbury on 7 Aug. 1696, is printed at length by Wilson in his ‘History of St. Lawrence Pountney’ (pp. 243–4). In a note on the character and dispositions of the London aldermen privately supplied to James II, Ward is described as a very considerable merchant and as a quaker (Gent. Mag. 1769, p. 517). The latter statement is probably not correct; but Ward's sympathies, like those of his colleague, Sir Humphrey Edwin [q. v.], were strongly opposed to the high-church party, and probably inclined to the dissenters.

Ward married, on 8 June 1653, Elizabeth, daughter of William Hobson of Hackney. The certificate of banns in the register of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate (Records of the Parish), states that they were published in Leadenhall Market, and the marriage was at Hackney church (Robinson, History of Hackney, ii. 69). His wife predeceased him during his exile on 24 Dec. 1685, and was buried in the ‘great church at Amsterdam.’ There was no issue of the marriage, but Sir Patience left his manor of Hooton Pagnel to his grand-nephew, Patience Ward, in whose family it remained for several generations. His nephew, Sir John Ward, son of his brother, Sir Thomas Ward of Tanshelf, was lord mayor in 1714, and ancestor of the Wards of Westerham in Kent.

His arms were azure, a cross patonce or. There is a full-length portrait of Ward in his mayoral robes at Merchant Taylors' Hall, and a small watercolour copy of it is in the Guildhall Library (MS. 20).

[Hunter's South Yorkshire, ii. 143; Clode's Hist. of the Merchant Taylors' Company; Papillon's Memoirs of Thomas Papillon, 1887; Stow's Survey of London; Wilson's Hist. of St. Lawrence Pountney; Stocken MSS. Guildhall Library; Wilson's Hist. of Merchant Taylors' School, pp. 353–62; Brit. Mus. Cat.; authorities above quoted.]

C. W-h.

WARD, ROBERT PLUMER (1765–1846), novelist and politician, born in Mount Street, Mayfair, on 19 March 1765, was son of John Ward by his wife Rebecca Raphael. His father was a merchant living in Gibraltar, and for many years was chief clerk to the civil department of the ordnance in the garrison. Robert was educated first at Mr. Macfarlane's private school at Walthamstow, and afterwards at Westminster school, whence he entered Christ Church, Oxford, matriculating on 12 Feb. 1783. In 1785 he became a student of the Inner Temple. He now passed a considerable portion of time abroad, and travelled in France during the early part of the revolutionary period. He was called to the bar by the Society of the Inner Temple on 17 June 1790, and soon after went the western circuit. In 1794 he fortunately came under the notice of Pitt and the solicitor-general, afterwards Lord Eldon, through his accidental discovery of the elements of a Jacobinical plot. Probably at the suggestion of the solicitor-general, in 1794 he determined to write on international law, and published in 1795 ‘An Inquiry into the Foundation and History of the Law of Nations in Europe from the Time of the Greeks and Romans to the Age of Grotius.’ This work, though rather of abstract interest than practical utility, was well reviewed, and served the reputation of its author.

By his marriage, on 2 April 1796, with Catherine Julia, the fourth daughter of Christopher Thompson Maling of Durham, Ward became intimately acquainted with Henry Phipps, first earl of Mulgrave [q. v.], who had but a short time before married the eldest daughter. He now changed from the western to the northern circuit, in order to benefit by the influence of his new relations. Though at this time he had a small common-law practice in London and before the privy council, his natural inclination was towards politics. In 1800, when the question of maritime neutrals was exciting public opinion, he undertook, at Lord Grenville's request, to represent the rights of belligerents from the English point of view. This work was published in March 1801, and Lord Grenville wrote to Ward on 2 April 1801 expressing his gratification at the result. A reward in the shape of a judgeship