Michael Radcliffe Ward

Michael Radcliffe Ward (c. 1859, Alderley - ) was an English electrical engineer and automotive pioneer. After making engineering innovation in electric lighting, he went on to develop electric buses.

By 1879, Radcliffe Ward was working for the British Electric Light Company. In 1881, he designed a Gramme machine which could power 4 to 6 arc lights of 4000 nominal candle power per light. They used one of the Gramme machines along with a multi-tubular boiler and vertical engine supplied by Cochrane and Co. The light produced was more effective in penetrating the fog than the pre-existing gas lights. In 1883 the Electrical Power Storage Co. (E.P.S.), with whose accumulators Radcliffe Ward subsequently worked, acquired the Faure patent.

In 1886 he produced a two-speed electrical cab where Magnus Volk had built Volk's Electric Railway in 1883 and ran an electric dogcart. In 1888 a syndicate, the Ward Company, was formed to develop electric traction. Under its manager, C.H.Yeaman, it built an electric bus which was run for 500 miles in London under license.

In 1893 the Ward Electrical Car Company Ltd exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, USA.

In 1894 Walter Bersey designed a second bus for the syndicate and a parcel van. A final meeting of the shareholders was held on 13 March 1902 to receive the liquidator's report.