Author: Ward, John
Biography:
WARD, John (1781-1870: Ebborn)
He was born on 22 June 1781 at Slawston, near Market Harborough, Leicestershire, the third of five children of William Ward and his wife, Eliza(beth) Atkin, who had married in 1777. Nothing is known of his education but he may have been educated at the grammar school in either Market Harborough or Ashby de-la-Zouch. He was apprenticed to a solicitor in Cheadle and admitted solicitor in 1808. Shortly afterwards he moved to Burslem, where he lived and practised for sixty years, specialising in land title and civil law. He lived in Newcastle Street with chambers in Market Place. Apart from his reputation as a solicitor, he was also known for The Borough of Stoke-Upon-Trent . . . Comprising its History, Statistics, Civil Policy and Traffic (1843), a wide-ranging description of the town 1837-43 which is still consulted for its account of the Pottery Riots of 1842. He married Anne Rice on 14 July 1810 at St. Helen’s, Ashby-de-la-Zouch. They had a son, William, in 1812, who died in 1847. Anne Ward died in 1859 and her niece Frances Brown came up from London to be Ward’s companion and housekeeper. He died on 27 May 1870 at Furlong House, Burslem, and was buried at St. Paul’s, Burslem. (David J. Ebborn, John Ward: Burslem Solicitor [2004]; ancestry.co.uk 7 Oct. 2022; Wolverhampton Chronicle 5 Oct. 1859; Staffordshire Sentinel 4 June 1870; Simms, 493) AA