Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/984

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WARD, SIR J. G.—WAR GRAVES

and at the age of 18 married Count Constantine de Guerbel. She studied singing in Italy and in Paris, and made her first appearance under the stage name of Ginevra Guerrabella at Bergamo in the opera Stella di Napoli (1855). She further ap- peared at Milan in Lucrezia Borgia (1856), in Paris in Don Giovanni (1859), in London in Robin Hood (1861) and in New York in La Traviata (1862). Loss of voice due to an illness obliged her to leave the operatic stage in 1862 and for some years she taught singing in New York, but in 1873 she came to England and began a long dramatic career, appearing first at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, as Lady Macbeth. In March 1874 she first appeared in London in The Prayer in the Storm and later played with Charles Wyndham in The Hunchback and at Drury Lane as Rebecca in Ivanhoe (1875). Her most popular success was as Stephanie de Mohrivart in H. C. Merivale's and F. C. Grove's Forgct-Me-Not, produced by herself at the Lyceum theatre, London, Aug. 21 1879, and subsequently played over 2,000 times all over the world. Increasing years found her talents as an actress in full vigour, specially in Shakespearean parts, and as late as 1920 and 1921 she repeated her old roles of Volumnia in Coriolanus and Margaret of Anjou in Richard III. at the " Old Vic " theatre in London. On her 84th birthday, March 27 1921, she was created D.B.E. She published a volume of reminiscences (with Richard Whiteing), Before and Behind the Curtain (1918).


WARD, SIR JOSEPH GEORGE, BART. (1857- ), New Zealand statesman, son of Thomas Ward, merchant, was born at Emerald Hill, Melbourne, April 26 1857, and was privately educated in Melbourne and at the state school, Bluff, N.Z. His first employment in New Zealand was as a boy of 13 in the de- partment over which he was afterwards to preside as Postmaster- General with conspicuous success for more than 20 years. At the age of 21 he started business on his own account as a produce merchant, and began a connexion with municipal politics which lasted many years. He entered Parliament as Liberal member for Awarua in 1887, and retained the seat for more than 30 years. On the formation of the Ballance Ministry in 1891 he joined it as Postmaster-General, and filled the same office in successive Liberal administrations until 1912, and afterwards for four years in the National Government (1915-9). The value of his energy and enterprise in this capacity was acknowledged even by his oppo- nents. In 1901 the success of his efforts to give New Zealand penny postage was rewarded by his being made a K.C.M.G., and at various postal conferences he distinguished himself by his pioneer advocacy of an All-Red Cable service and universal penny postage. In the Scddon Government he held other im- portant portfolios, which included those of Colonial Treasurer and Minister of Railways, and his appointment as Minister of Public Health (Nov. 8 1900) is believed to have been the first such appointment in the world.

After Seddon's death, Sir Joseph Ward, who had on several occasions filled the position of Acting Premier during his late leader's absence from New Zealand, succeeded to the Premier- ship Aug. 6 1906 and held it till his resignation March 28 1912. (For his principal achievements in that capacity, the gift of a battle-cruiser to Great Britain and the institution of compulsory military training, see NEW ZEALAND.) After acting as leader of the opposition till Aug. 1915 Sir J. G. Ward joined with Mr. Mas- sey, the Reform party's leader, then Prime Minister, in forming the National Government, in which the Reform and the Liberal parties were equally represented in order to avoid party strife for the period of the war. In the National Government thus established Sir J. G. Ward's principal office was that of Finance Minister. With Mr. Massey he went to London to represent New Zealand at the Imperial War Cabinet and War Conference meetings of 1917 and 1918; and he also attended the Peace Conference at Paris in 1919 as a member of the British Empire delegation. Shortly after his return with Mr. Massey from Paris Sir J. G. Ward dissolved the coalition by resigning his place in the National Government (Aug. 22 1919), and at the general election at the end of the year his party was defeated and he him- self lost his seat. His own defeat was due in part to a sectarian agitation directed against him on the ground of his alleged bias as a Roman Catholic in favour of those of his own faith.

In addition to the occasions already mentioned Sir J. G. Ward represented the Dominion at the Imperial Conferences of 1907, 1909 (Defence) and 1911. At the 1909 Conference he strongly supported the ideal of an undivided Imperial navy. He was ap- pointed to the Privy Council in 1906, and received a baronetcy in 1911. During his various Imperial missions he received the freedom of London, Edinburgh and other British cities, and ! the hon. degree of LL.D. from the universities of Cambridge i and Edinburgh and Trinity College, Dublin. He married in 1883 Theresa Dorothea de Smith (C.B.E. 1919), and had a family of four sons and one daughter.


WARD, LESTER FRANK (1841-1913), American geologist and sociologist (see 28.320), died in Washington, D.C., April 18 1913. His numerous minor publications, together with biographical notes, were issued under the title Glimpses of the Cosmos, 6 vols. (1913-8), the last five volumes posthumously.


WARD, MARY AUGUSTA [MRS. HUMPHRY WARD] (1851-1920), ; English novelist (see 28.320), died in London March 24 1920. | Since 1910 she had published The Case of Richard Mcyncll (1911), a study of Modernism and in a sense a sequel to Robert Elsmcre; The Mating of Lydia (1913); The Coryslon Family (1913); Delia Blanch/lower (1914) ; ElthamHouse (1915) ; A Great Success (1915); Lady Connie (1916); Missing (1917); The War and Elizabeth (1918); and a posthumously published novel, Harvest (1920). She had also in 1918 published her memoirs, A Writer's Recollec- tions, and during the World War she undertook, for propaganda purposes and with a view to enlightening the American public, a journey through the English munitions areas and two journeys in France, the results of which were published as England's Effort (1916); Towards the Goal (1917) and Fields of Victory (1919). From the great fatigue of the second French journey, undertaken in winter and in her 67th year, she never entirely recovered. Her work for children has been commemorated by the raising of a fund to further endow the Passmore Edwards Settlement, in Tavistock Place, London, re-named after her the Mary Ward Settlement.


WARD, WILFRID PHILIP (1856-1916), English man of letters, was born at Ware Jan. 2 1856, the second son of William George Ward (see 28.321). Educated at St. Edmund's College, Ware, Ushaw College, Durham, and the Gregorian University of Rome, he became lecturer in philosophy at Ushaw College in 1890, and examiner in mental and moral science to the Royal University of Ireland 1891-2. In 1906 he became editor of The Dublin Review. He was the author of numerous books: The Wish to Believe (1884); The Clothes of Religion (1886); W. G. Ward and the Oxford Movement (1889) ; W. G. Ward and the Catholic Revival (1893) ; Lives of Cardinal Wiseman (1897), Aubrey de Vcrc (1904), Cardinal Newman (1912), and several volumes of essays. He died in London April 8 1916. A biographical notice of him, written by his wife, JOSEPHINE MARY (b. 1864), daughter of J. R. Hope-Scott, was published as a preface to his Last Lectures (1916). Mrs. Ward was also the author of several distinguished novels, including One Poor Scruple (1899); The Light Behind (1903); Great Possessions (1910); The Job Secretary (1911) and Not Known Here (1921).


WAR GRAVES.—I. BRITISH FORCES. One of the most in- teresting pieces of organization resulting from the World War is represented in the Imperial War Graves Commission, which was constituted on behalf of the Governments and peoples of all parts of the British Empire, and charged with the care in perpetuity of the graves of their sailors and soldiers.

History. Early in Sept. 1914 a mobile unit, under the command of Maj.-Gen. Sir Fabian Ware, was formed in France, with the approval of Lord Kitchener, by the British Red Cross Society to search for " missing" on the line of the British retreat from Mons, along which the Germans were then being forced back. While similar work was being carried out from Paris, also under the auspices of the British Red Cross Society, this mobile unit operating between Lille and Amiens was found marking and registering graves in that area when the British army moved