WARD

WARD : Dudley, West Midlands

My DNA proves that my Ward surname was originally Warr (occasionally spelled Wharr or Worr in Dudley parish registers, where there are several examples of the names Warr and Ward being interchangeable.)

Michael Warr was baptised at Dudley on 9 July 1749, son of Joseph and Mary Warr.  A nailmaker by trade, he married Phebe Jones at St Thomas’s, Dudley, on 26 December 1770, and their children included Nancy (1771), Sarah (1773), Betty (1775 d. 1779), Daniel (1778), Sophia (d. 1789), Edward (1792) and George (1796 died in infancy).  I am descended from Edward who was baptised at Dudley on 28 October 1792.

Phoebe Warr was buried at Dudley on 6 February 1814 aged 66, and Michael Warr remarried in the neighbouring parish of Kingswinford on Christmas Day that same year, to Ann Badger.  He was buried at Dudley on 26 January 1820 aged 70 (surname spelled Ward).

His son Edward, also a nailor or nailmaker, lived at Salop Street in the Shaver’s End district of Dudley. Edward’s marriage to Harriet Histon at Tipton in 1811 was recorded in the parish register under the name Warr, but the groom’s signature is spelled Ward. Likewise, the bride’s surname is recorded as Eastton, but she signed the register Histon.  Thereafter Edward’s surname always appears as Ward.

Harriet Histon was baptised at Dudley on 24 July 1791, daughter of Benjamin Histon and Elizabeth Southall, who had married there at St Thomas’s on 29 November 1790. 

At least two of the Ward children took the additional name of their maternal grandmother, Southall. They were all born at Dudley, and included my forebear Elizabeth, baptised with her brother William Southall on 5 Nov 1815, Ann Southall (16 Feb 1817, died at 1 yr 3 mths), Joseph (17 Jan 1819), Harriet (8 Oct 1820), Edward (17 Mar 1822), Julia (7 Mar 1824), John (15 Jan 1826), Mary Ann (18 Mar 1827, died at 3 mths), Noah (16 Nov 1828), James (8 Aug 1830, died at 3 yrs 10 mths) and Louisa (20 Oct 1833, died at 8 mths). These last two children were buried together on 28 May 1834. 

Harriet Ward died aged 42 a few months after the youngest child’s birth and was buried from the Wesleyan Chapel, Wolverhampton Street, Dudley, on 26 January 1834.  Eleven months later on 29 December Edward Ward re-married, to Phebe Webb née Green, a widow, at St Mary’s church, Kingswinford. One of the witnesses was his son-in-law, Thomas Bradley.

On the 1841 census Edward Ward’s family was at Salop Street in the parish of St James:

Edward Ward, aged 45, labourer
Phebe, aged 50, nailer
Edward, aged 15, miner
Julia, aged 15, nailer
John, aged 10, nailer
Noah, aged 10
Samuel, aged 7 (no record of this child’s birth).

Next door in Salop Street on the 1841 census were Edward’s eldest son William and his family:

William Ward, aged 25, nailer
Prudence, aged 30, nailer
Phoebe, aged 2
Esther, aged 1.

(William Ward had married Prudence Webb, daughter of his stepmother Phebe, at Tipton on 20 April 1835.  His brother-in-law Thomas Bradley was a witness.)

Edward Ward’s daughter Harriet (b.1820) married James Naylor at Wordsley on 4 November 1838.  The bridegroom was a porter in the office of Lord Ward at Dudley Castle, and the couple lived at Castle Lodge, having five sons and a daughter, until Harriet was widowed in 1870. She herself died in 1885.

Harriet’s brother John Ward (b. 1826) married Lavinia Instone at Sedgley on 7 December 1845. The register gives groom’s occupation as nailer, abode Shavers End, and father as Edward Ward, nailer; and bride’s abode as Sedgley, daughter of Joseph Instone, chainmaker. Their witnesses were John’s siblings Edward and Julia Ward. Their known children were James (1848), Eleanor (1850, died aged 9 mths), Emily or Emma (1852 – on the 1861 census she was staying with her aunt Harriet Naylor), and Ellen (1854, died aged 1 yr 9 mths) all baptised at Dudley.

The youngest of Edward Ward’s daughters, Julia, married Samuel Rook at St Edmund’s Dudley on 25 Feb 1849. She was buried on 6 July that same year, aged 25.

Edward Ward’s second wife, Phebe, died aged 56 on 4 May 1844, and three months later on 26 August he married his third wife, at Tipton parish church. The marriage certificate shows him to be a widower, occupation nailer, son of Michael Ward, also a nailer (deceased). The bride was Mary Walsh, widow, daughter of Joseph Jukes, bricklayer (deceased), and the witnesses were John and Sarah Harper.

On the 1851 census the family was still at Salop Street:

Edward Ward, head, aged 59, nailer
Mary, wife, aged 50
Hannah Welsh, daughter, aged 20, dressmaker
James Welsh, son-in-law, aged 18, day labourer.

(Hannah and James were probably the children of Mary, Edward’s third wife: the term son-in-law was also generally used to mean step-son.)

Still living close by were William Ward and his family:

William Ward, aged 35, nail factor
Prudence, wife, aged 40, nail factor
Phoebe, daughter, aged 12
Edward, son, aged 7
Esther, daughter, aged 2.

(A son, Francis, baptised at St James’s on 1 Feb 1852, died in infancy.)

And a short way from them along Salop Street were Edward Ward jnr and his family:

Edward Ward, aged 28, day labourer
Ann, wife, aged 28, dressmaker
Nancy, daughter, aged 2.

(Edward Ward married a widow, Ann Evans née Walsh, at Lower Gornal church on 10 June 1849. Their daughter Naomi, wrongly recorded as Nancy on the 1851 census, had been born on 21 February that year, and baptised Naomi Ward Evans. Edward died in 1857.)

On the same census, another of the Ward brothers, Noah, was living at Salop Street with his wife’s grandparents:

William Marsh, aged 78, formerly a limestone miner, born Gornal
Sarah, wife, aged 78, born Sedgley
Noah Ward, son-in-law, aged 23, nailer, born Dudley
Harriet Ward, wife, aged 18, nailer, born Ruiton, Staffs.

(Noah Ward had married Harriet Marsh at St Mary’s Kingswinford on 23 December 1850.  The marriage certificate describes his father Edward Ward as a nail master, and the bride’s father, Joseph Marsh, as a nailer.)

Edward Ward was still working as a nailer at Salop Street on the 1861 census:

Edward Ward, head, aged 74, nail factor
Mary, wife, aged 62
George Andrews, grandson, aged 15, vice maker
Samuel Arthur Chavasse, visitor, aged 7, scholar.

Next door was living Edward’s step-son James Welsh (or Walsh) and his family:

James Welsh, head, aged 27, gas fitter
Louisa, wife, aged 24
Rowland Arthur, son, aged 2.
(James Walsh married Louisa Chavass at West Bromwich Dec Q 1857.)

On the same census, living at St Edmund’s Street in Dudley were Edward Ward’s eldest son William and his second wife:

William Southall Ward, head, aged 41, nail manufacturer
Maria, wife, aged 25
Edward, son, aged 17
Esther, daughter, aged 12, scholar
Joseph, son, aged 6 months.
(William Southall Ward married Maria Wooley Sumerfield at Stourbridge March Q 1858. He died in 1867.)

Edward Ward died at Dudley in January 1871, aged 81, and was buried at St James’s on the 29th of that month.

His son Noah, aged 36, a nailmaker, had been living close by in 1861 at Shaver’s End with his wife Harriett, 29, and sons Joseph, aged 9, and Noah, aged 9 months. Twenty years later, in 1881, the family was at 49 King Edmund Street, where Noah, his wife Harriett and son Noah (20) were all working as horse-nail makers. The youngest child, John, aged 9, was still at school. The family later moved to Bishops Auckland, where Noah Ward died in 1906, aged 77.

Edward Ward’s eldest daughter Elizabeth married Thomas Bradley at St Thomas’s Dudley on 20 April 1834. Their witnesses were Thomas Allen (parish clerk) and Enoch Hartshorn. Thomas Bradley was born in 1811.

He and Elizabeth are my direct forebears – see BRADLEY family.  Elizabeth died on 7 October 1851, aged 38.

Another of the Ward brothers, Joseph, married Ann Maria Hughes at Dudley parish church on 31 October 1841. The marriage certificate records the bridegroom as a miner of Shaver’s End, son of Edward Ward, nailer, and the bride, also of Shaver’s End, as daughter of Thomas Hughes, sawyer. The witnesses were James and Esther Griffin.

On the 1851 census Joseph and his family were living at Bug Pool, Kingswinford:

Joseph Ward, aged 33, coal miner, born Dudley
Maria, wife, aged 36, born Kingswinford
Mary Ann, daughter, aged 8
Elizabeth Taylor, daughter, aged 6
Julia, daughter, aged 4
Harriett, daughter, aged 3

There were also two lodgers: Thomas Hughes, aged 38, labourer at a coal pit, born Kingswinford (probably Ann Maria’s brother) and Elizabeth Hughes, widow, aged 74, labourer’s wife, born Alvechurch (probably her mother).

The children of Joseph and Ann Maria Ward, all baptised at Kingswinford, included: Mary Ann (18 Dec 1842), Elizabeth Taylor (18 Aug 1844), Julia (10 May 1846), Harriett (13 May 1848), George Hughes (5 May 1850), Anna (25 Jan 1852), Joseph (22 Aug 1853), Edward (c1857).

On the 1881 census Joseph and Ann Maria were living at Main Road, Amblecote, with their widowed daughter Julia:

Joseph Ward, aged 62, carter, born Dudley
Maria, wife, aged 65, born Wordsley
Julia Beautyman, boarder (daughter) widow, aged 34, domestic servant, born Wordsley
Mary Ann Beautyman, aged 1 (Julia’s daughter) born Wordsley.

Julia had married Richard Beautyman at Stourbridge in 1872, and he died at the end of 1879, aged 32.