William Ward

William Ward (1769-1823) was born and raised in Derbyshire. He became editor of the Derby Mercury in the late 1780s; he later edited the Staffordshire Advertiser and the Hull Advertiser, displaying throughout his brief career in journalism a strong affinity for radical reform politics. After his baptism at Hull in 1796, he abandoned politics and newspapers and entered John Fawcett’s academy at Wainsgate to study for the ministry. Apparently he was still involved enough in civil matters, however, to publish a pamphlet titled The Abolition of the Slave Trade, Peace, and a Temperate Reform Essential to the Salvation of England (1796). In 1797 he began assisting the ailing Samuel Pearce in Birmingham, but his mind had for some time been focused on Carey’s mission in India. Ward had met Carey at Carter Lane in London on 31 March 1793; five years later, in October 1798, Ward wrote to Carey, informing Carey that he was coming to India. With Joshua Marshman and several others, Ward arrived at Serampore on 13 October 1799, and would soon join with Carey in building the work of the Serampore Mission. His main work involved the Mission Press, considered by many as the most important press in Asia in the nineteenth century. His Account of the Writings, Religion, and Manners, of the Hindoos (Serampore, 1811), was considered well into the twentieth century as the standard guide to Bengal.  He married the widow of John Fountain in 1802.  He also founded the first western-style newspaper in an Indian language, the Samachar Darpan. While on furlough in England in 1819-1821, Ward helped found the British India Society. He died of cholera shortly after his return to India in 1823. See Eustace Carey, Memoir, 85-86, 282; S. Pearce Carey, William Carey, 112, 172; A. Christopher Smith, “William Ward, Radical Reform, and Missions in the 1790s,” American Baptist Quarterly 10 (1991): 218-244; A. Christopher Smith, “Joshua (1768-1837) and Hannah Marshman (1767-1847),” in The British Particular Baptists, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin, 5 vols. (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press, 1998-2019), 2:237-253.