Thomas Humphry Ward, who married Mary Augusta Arnold in 1872, was a Fellow of Brasenose College Oxford, where he was Tutor from 1870 to 1881, when the family moved to London. There Humphry Ward wrote leaders for The Times, while his wife reviewed books for the Pall Mall Gazette and for The Times itself, as well as writing articles for Macmillan's Magazine. In 1884 Mrs Humphry Ward's novel Miss Bretherton appeared, to be followed by Robert Elsmere, her first major novel, in 1888, and by over twenty-five other novels. In 1908 Mary Ward was one of the founders of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League. During the First World War, Mary Ward was asked by Theodore Roosevelt to undertake a series of articles to explain to Americans what England was doing during the war. After Eton and Oxford, Arnold Ward acted as Special Correspondent for The Times in Egypt, the Sudan and India from 1899 to 1902. He then studied for the Bar and in 1910 became M.P. for West Hertfordshire. In 1914-15 he served with the Hertfordshire Yeomanry in Egypt and Cyprus. Dorothy Ward helped with the work of the Passmore Edwards Settlement (now Mary Ward House) which her mother founded, and with children's play centres and a school for invalid children. She accompanied her mother to visit war zones in France during the First World War.
From the guide to the Ward Family Papers, 1871-1955, (University College London)
