CHARLES WARD 



Charles Ward was born in Leamington, England, March 5, 1841, and 

 came to America in 1871. He had been trained as a gas engineer in England 

 and almost his first work in America was in Charleston, W. Va., where he 

 installed the first gas works and later became the superintendent and general 

 manager of the company. From this time Charleston became his home. 



Outside of local prominence in western river steamboating, Mr. Ward 

 attracted the special attention of the engineers of the country when the 

 late Admiral Melville invited the makers of water-tube boilers to compete 

 for supplying the boilers for the coast-defense vessel Monterey. Mr. Ward's 

 boiler was tested in 1890 and was noteworthy for the length of the test 

 under severe conditions and the excellent efficiency attained. As a result 

 four boilers of this type were installed on the Monterey, and he thus has 

 the credit of the first installation of water-tube boilers on a large war vessel. 



Even before this, smaller water-tube boilers of a different design manu- 

 factured by Mr. Ward had been used in steam launches of the United States 

 Navy, and they have given such satisfaction that the Navy Department has 

 continued their purchase and use up to the present time. 



Mr. Ward was also a pioneer in the use of screw propellers on western 

 river steamboats in the efifort to reduce waste and increase efficiency as com- 

 pared with the time-honored stern-wheel boats, which are almost exclusively 

 in use. Some years ago Mr. Ward carried out a repetition of the famous 

 test in England, during the first half of the last century, of a tug of war 

 between a screw-propelled boat and a stern-wheel boat of the same power. 

 In the later case, as in the earlier one, the screw propeller showed the better 

 results. 



Mr. Ward was a man of agreeable personality, who inspired confidence 

 and respect in all who were associated with him. He occasionally contributed 

 papers to the engineering societies, but, as so often happens, the man of 

 deeds was not the man of words, so that his contribution to marine engineer- 

 ing was in the courageous development of new ideas rather than in the 

 clever telling of what had been done by himself or others. His business, 

 which was at first carried out in his own name, later became the Charles 

 Ward Engineering Works. He died January 17, 1915. 



