272 JAMES WARD. 



thorpe, near Kipon, to Wensley about the year 1720, disposing of 

 his estate in that district to Wilham Wilberforce, of Kiugston- 

 upon-Hull, grandfather of the great philanthropist. 



There is not much to record of Mr. Ward's early life beyond the 

 fact that he was educated at a school at Leyburn, a small town 

 about two miles distant from Wensley, and one of the most pictur- 

 esque spots in the Yorkshire "dales." At the age of fourteen he 

 went to Richmond to live with his uncles John and Charles Ward, 

 and to learn their business, which was that of chymists and oil 

 merchants. As part of his work he had to study the medicinal 

 virtues of plants ; he had also to help his uncles to cultivate a large 

 garden. In 1821 his uncle, John Ward, started the Richmond 

 Florist Society for the promotion of the cultivation of flowers and 

 fruits. 



John Ward was a botanist, and had a large number of botanical 

 books. In early life he had gone to London to study for the medical 

 profession, but not caring for the surgical part of it had given it up. 

 He now directed his nephew's studies and fostered his taste for 

 plants, so that the young man commenced to scour the country in 

 search of every kind and variety of plant. The hours of work in 

 those days were very long, being from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. This 

 left very little time for leisure or for botanizing, and yet, "where 

 there's a will there's a way," and the young botanist rose at four 

 o'clock in the morning, spent three hours in the woods or on the 

 moors, and was back at seven o'clock, ready to begin his daily 

 duties. The work in his uncle's establishment was not of a light 

 nature, for the communications with wholesale houses were not so 

 quick as in these times, and most of their goods came by water from 

 London to Stockton. They, however, manufactured a large number 

 of things on their own premises, so that a distilling of various 

 essences was always going on, besides the constant moving of oil 

 barrels, for the oil department constituted the largest part of the 

 business in the days before gas was introduced. When gas was 

 introduced, Mr. John Ward was the first in Richmond to manu- 

 facture it. Occasionally James would get a day's holiday which he 

 would employ in botanizing, starting at dawn and wandering over 

 the hills and dales for nearly fifty miles, collecting plants all the 

 time, and returning home when he could no longer see. 



In 1824 James Ward compiled a list of plants growing in North 

 Yorkshire ; the districts to which he chiefly devoted himself were 

 the valleys of the Swale, Yore, and Tees. In 1825 he had collected 

 66G species. In 1827 he had 830 species; in 1831, 1027 species; 

 in 1836, 1318 species; in 1844, 1454 species; in 1856, 1591 spe- 

 cies ; in 1863, 1642 species ; in 1871 — his last entry— 1753 species. 

 These refer to the British Herbarium alone, which he looked upon 

 as the most valuable, and besides this he had his Exotic Her- 

 barium, containing foreign as well as English plants. 



In 1833 Mr. Hewett Cottrell Watson published his New Botanist's 

 Guide, containing Mr. Ward's catalogue of North Yorkshire plants. 

 Until Mr. Ward's death in 1873 this veteran botanist corresponded 

 with him as to plants, their varieties and habitats, and his catalogues 



