Wilfrid Philip Ward

Wilfrid Philip Ward (2 January 1856 – 9 April 1916) was an English essayist and biographer. Ward and his friend Baron Friedrich von Hügel have been described as "the two leading lay English Catholic thinkers of their generation".

Life Wilfrid Ward was born in 1856 at Old Hall, Ware, Hertfordshire, one of nine children of Catholic converts William George Ward and his wife Frances Wingfield Ward.

He first went to Downside School, then St. Edmund's College in Ware, Hertfordshire. He obtained a B.A. degree from London University and later attended Catholic University College, Kensington. In 1877, Ward went to the English College, Rome to prepare for the priesthood and returned a year later to continue his studies at Ushaw College, in Durham, England. In 1881, shortly before his planned ordination, Ward reconsidered, and joined the Inner Temple to take up a career in law. Subsequently discouraged, he then became a writer. The eldest, Mary Josephine "Maisie" married Frank Sheed and together founded the publishing house Sheed and Ward.

Biographer

In 1889, Ward published a biography of his father, William George Ward and the Oxford Movement. This proving successful, he then wrote William George Ward and the Catholic Revival. Cardinal Herbert Vaughan then invited Ward to write a biography of the late Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman. This was followed in 1912 by a two-volume biography of John Henry Newman.

In 1890 Ward was appointed examiner in Mental and Moral Philosophy to the Royal University of Ireland.

Works William George Ward and the Oxford Movement, Macmillan & Co., 1893 [1st Pub. 1889]. William George Ward and the Catholic Revival, Macmillan & Co., 1893 [second edition 1912. Witnesses to the Unseen, and Other Essays Macmillan & Co., 1893. The Life and Times of Nicholas Wiseman, Longmans, Green & Co., 1897. Problems and Persons, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1903 Aubrey de Vere: A Memoir, Longmans, Green & Co., 1904. Ten Personal Studies, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908. Life of John Henry, Cardinal Newman, Based on his Private Journals and Correspondence, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912. The Oxford Movement, T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1912. Men and Matters, Longmans, Green & Co., 1914. Last Lectures of Wilfrid Ward, Longmans, Green & Co., 1918