John Ward (geologist)

John Ward
Born11 August 1837 
Fenton 
Died30 November 1906  (aged 69)
Longton 
Resting placeLongton Cemetery 
OccupationDraper, fossil collector, geologist, paleontologist, councillor, alderman, magistrate, poor-law guardian 
Awards

John Ward FGS (1837-1906) was an English draper, and an amateur palaeontologist and ichthyologist, known for collecting and researching fossils—especially fishes—from the coal mines of Staffordshire.

Many of the fossils he collected—including some type specimens—are in significant scientific collections. A number of species and a genus were named in his honour, although some of the species names are no longer considered valid.

He was a founder member and president of the North Staffordshire Naturalists Field Club and played an active role in the civic life of his home town of Longton, Staffordshire.

Early years and career

John Ward, son of William Ward, was born on 11 August 1837, in Fenton, North Staffordshire, and educated at Ivy House School, in nearby Hanley.[1][2][3][4] He was raised by his grandfather, also John Ward, a draper, and at one time the Chief Bailiff of Fenton.[2][5] He set up his own business as a draper, remaining one for most of this life, and working from premises at 23, Stafford Street in Longton, where he lived above the shop for most of his career.[1][3][5][6] He was assisted in the business by his wife, Eliza, née Cooke, two years his senior, whom he married on 15 March 1860 at St Peter Ad Vincula, Stoke[a].[5][4]

He also had a position in the offices at Lane End Colliery at Longton.[3]

He served as a town councillor representing St Paul's Ward, being first elected on 27 February 1872 as a Conservative.[5] He was appointed an alderman in around 1894, and more than once declined invitations to be Mayor of Longton.[5] He was chairman of the Library Committee for Longton, responsible for developing the town's library, in whose establishment he had earlier played a key role, not least by arranging the transfer of the Longton Athenæum and Mechanics Institution, of which he was honorary secretary, to the town council, to form the basis of the library collection.[5]

He was also a guardian of the poor for Stoke, and a magistrate.[5]

He attended Stafford Street Wesleyan Church, and served as a master of the Etruscan Lodge of the Freemasons.[5]

Scientific activities

As a youth, Ward waas encouraged by Robert Garner[b] in the study of geology.[1] He became particularly interested in, and collected, fossils found in the mines of the North Staffordshire Coalfield, especially those of fishes, and of molluscs and trees.[1]

In 1865 he attended what was to become the inaugural meeting of the North Staffordshire Naturalists Field Club (from 1897, "North Staffordshire Field Club"), and was an active member for the next forty years, serving in a number of roles, not least president for 1875-1876, and subsequently vice-president.[1][2]

Specimens he collected were displayed in his premises at Longton, where he was known for his hospitality to curious naturalists.[2] The specimens were loaned to or visited, studied and described by, among others, James William Davis, Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton, Wheelton Hind, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Kidston, Ramsay Heatley Traquair, Arthur Smith Woodward, and John Young.[1]

Between 1861 and 1906 he published 29 papers in a variety of journals.[2] These include "The Geological Features of the North Staffordshire Coalfields," (1890), published by the North Staffordshire Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers and running to 189 pages, plus plates, some of which were drawn by Traquair.[1] It included Ward's description of a new fish species, Diplodus equilateralis, now considered a synonym of Orthacanthus gibbosus.[7] He also wrote chapters for Walcot Gibson's "The Geology of the North Staffordshire Coalfields", published by the British Geological Survey in 1905.[8]

Ward learned French in order to understand scientific publications in that language.[5]

A major part of his collection of fossil fishes, and some of amphibians, was purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum[c] in 1894 (he had donated some fossil bivalves in 1884).[1][9] Other specimens are in the Royal Scottish Museum, Leicester Museum, the Manchester Museum, the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery (which holds 798 specimens[10]), Bolton Museum, and the Hancock Museum,[3] as well as the Queensland Museum in Australia[11] and in museums in mainland Europe America.[5] A 19-page booklet, "Fossil Fishes of Fenton and Longton: The John Ward Collection", by Don Steward, was published by Stoke's City Museum and Art Gallery (now Potteries Museum & Art Gallery) in 1994.[12]

Honours

Ward was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1874.[1] In 1899 he was given a moiety (a financial award) by the Lyell Geological Fund "in recognition of his prolonged devotion to geological research",[2][13] He was made an honorary member of the North Staffordshire Institute of Mining Engineers.[5] He was presented with a four volumes set of "Faune du Calcaire Carbonifere de la Belgique" [Fauna of the Carboniferous Limestone of Belgium] by the Natural History Society of Belgium.[8]

In 1895, the North Staffordshire Naturalists Field Club awarded him its Garner Memorial Medal, named after Robert Garner, "for research into, and papers on, the Geology and Paleontology of the North Staffordshire Coalfields".[1][14] On presenting the medal, the club's then president Wheelton Hind stated that Ward:[13]

had established his name as one of European fame. There was hardly a museum in Europe [...] in which there was not some tangible proof of Mr. Ward's geological labours.

Ramsay Heatley Traquair named the fish genus Wardichthys in 1875, "In honour of Mr. J. Ward, of Longton, Staffordshire, to whom I am indebted for much valuable assistance in the study of Carboniferous fishes."[15]

Species named in his honour include:

  • Acanthodes wardi EGERTON 1866,[16]
  • Mesolepis wardi YOUNG 1866[17]
  • Palaeoniscus wardi WARD 1875[d]; recombined as Rhadinichthys wardi WOODWARD 1891[18]
  • Orthacanthus wardi DAVIS 1880 (as Pleuracanthus wardi)[19]
  • Anthracomya wardi ETHERIDGE 1890[20] now Anthraconaia wardi
  • Listracanthus wardi WOODWARD 1903[e].[21]

All are fish, apart from Anthraconaia wardi, which is a mollusc.[5]

Death and legacy

Ward died on 30 November 1906 at his home at 58, Stone Road in Longton, after a period of ill health, caused by a malignant tumour, through which time he continued to work on palaeontological research.[1][2][5] He was survived by his wife.[2] His funeral took place on 4 December at Longton Borough Cemetery, where he was buried.[5] Flags on Longton Town Hall and courthouse were flown at half-mast.[5]

An obituary by Arthur Smith Woodward was published in Geological Magazine,[1] another in the annual report of the North Staffordshire Field Club for 1906/1907,[2] and one in the Staffordshire Sentinel on 3 December,[22] repeated with details of his funeral on 8 December.[5] The Sentinel obituary included notes on his scientific career by Wheelton Hind.[13]

His family donated his books and some fossils to the Mining Institute; the books are now in special collections of the library of the University of Staffordshire.[23]

In 1952, John Myers gave his presidential address to the North Staffordshire Field Club, entitled "The Geological Work of John Ward, Wheelton Hind and J. T. Stobbs".[13]

Don Steward, writing in Geological Curator, the journal of the Geological Collections Group, a body for professional curators, described him in 1984 as "a world renowned palaeontologist whose name will always be associated with a remarkable collection of Carboniferous fossil fish obtained from the Potteries Coalfield."[3]

Notes

  1. ^ The former towns of Fenton, Hanley, Longton and Stoke are all now part of the city of Stoke-on-Trent.
  2. ^ Garner was author of the "Natural History of the County of Stafford" (1844); see his Wikisource page.
  3. ^ Now the Natural History Museum, London
  4. ^ Palaeoniscus wardi was named by Young ("1875. Palæoniscus wardi, J. Young, Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasgow, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 66 (name only).") but described by Ward ("1875. Palæoniscus wardi, J. Ward, [Proc.] N. Staffs. Nat. Field Club, p. 289."), later the same year.
  5. ^ Sometimes erroneously stated as WOODWARD 1891; now regarded as a synonym of Acanthorhachis spinatus.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l A. S. W. (March 1907). "John Ward, F.G.S" (PDF). Geological Magazine. 4 (3): 141–143. doi:10.1017/S0016756800130134. ISSN 0016-7568. Wikidata Q135000649.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i "In Memoriam. John Ward, F.G.S.". North Staffordshire Field Club Annual Report and Transactions. XLI: 41–47. 1907. Wikidata Q135001844.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Steward, Don (1984). "Collectors & Collections: 37. Geology at Stoke-On-Trent Museum And Art Gallery" (PDF). Geological Curator. 4 (1): 29–42. doi:10.55468/GC731.
  4. ^ a b "John Ward in 1860 (Archive reference D3787/2/13)". Find My Past.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Anonymous; W.H. (8 December 1906). "Death of Ald. John Ward, J.P, F.G.S., Of Longton". The Sentinel: 10. Wikidata Q135005031.
  6. ^ "TMR1.W.3.2 - Letter from John Ward". University of Liverpool. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
  7. ^ "Orthacanthus gibbosus". Shark-References. Retrieved 23 June 2025.
  8. ^ a b Adams, Julie. "Library: Mining 100: Geology of North Staffordshire". University of Staffordshire. Retrieved 23 June 2025.
  9. ^ British Museum (Natural History) (1904), The history of the collections contained in the Natural history departments of the British museum, vol. 1, London: Printed by order of the Trustees, p. 235,250, doi:10.5962/BHL.TITLE.20926, LCCN 05018412, OCLC 1534176, Wikidata Q51430028
  10. ^ "Geology Collections". Stoke Museums. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
  11. ^ Turner, Sue (April 1981). "Lost & Found: 114. Lucas, F.P.". Geological Curator. 3 (1): 21–21. doi:10.55468/GC1281.
  12. ^ Don Steward (1994). Fossil Fishes of Fenton and Longton. ISBN 978-0-905080-69-7. Wikidata Q135010593.
  13. ^ a b c d J. Myers (1952). "Presidential Address: The Geological Work of John Ward, Wheelton Hind and J. T. Stobbs". North Staffordshire Field Club Annual Report and Transactions. 86: 13–43. Wikidata Q135058404.
  14. ^ "Garner Medal". North Staffordshire Field Club Annual Report and Transactions: 9–10. 1908. Wikidata Q123147164.
  15. ^ R.H. Traquair (April 1875). "On some fossil fishes from the neighbourhood of Edinburgh". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 15 (88): 258–268. doi:10.1080/00222937508681073. ISSN 0374-5481. Wikidata Q134995690.
  16. ^ Philip de M. Grey Egerton (February 1866). "On a New Species of Acanthodes from the Coal-shales of Longton". Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London. 22 (1–2): 468–470. doi:10.1144/GSL.JGS.1866.022.01-02.34. ISSN 0370-291X. Wikidata Q134995579. I am desirous of giving my testimony to the zeal and liberality which Mr. Ward has shown in advancing the knowledge of the organic remains of his district, and therefore have much pleasure in naming this rare species Acanthodes Wardi.
  17. ^ John Young (February 1866). "On the Affinities of Platysomus and allied Genera". Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London. 22 (1–2): 301–317. doi:10.1144/GSL.JGS.1866.022.01-02.22. ISSN 0370-291X. Wikidata Q134995672.
  18. ^ Woodward, Arthur Smith; British Museum (Natural History). Department of Geology. (1901), Catalogue of the fossil fishes in the British Museum (Natural History), London: Printed by order of the Trustees, doi:10.5962/BHL.TITLE.61854, LCCN a10001171, OCLC 4363056, Wikidata Q51454344
  19. ^ James William Davis (1880). "On the genus Pleuracanthus, AGASS., including Orthacanthus, AGASS., and GOLDF., Diplodus, AGASS., and Xenacanthus, BEYR". Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London. 36: 321–336. ISSN 0370-291X. Wikidata Q135002397. I have much pleasure in employing the name of Mr. Ward, of Longton, in order to distinguish this spine specifically. Like most workers in fossil ichthyology, I have been much indebted on many occasions to his uniform kindness and willingness to render assistance, either by his extensive knowledge or the ample contents of his cabinets.
  20. ^ Robert Etheridge, A. Wardi, n. sp. Etheridge. p. 126 In: (1890). "The Geological Features of the North Staffordshire Coal-fields, Their Organic Remains, Their Range and Distribution". Transactions Of The North Staffordshire Institute Of Mining And Mechanical Engineers. X. Wikidata Q135002244. Remarks:-A new and undiscribed form was found by me some years since to which the late Mr. J. W. Salter gave the M.S. name of A. Wardi. Mr. R. Etheridge, F.R.S., has kindly favoured me with the following description of this species
  21. ^ Arthur Smith Woodward (November 1903). "II.—On the Carboniferous Ichthyodorulite Listracanthus". Geological Magazine. 10 (11): 486–488. doi:10.1017/S0016756800179579. ISSN 0016-7568. Wikidata Q134992572. Judged both by the peculiar spines, and also by the tubercles, Mr. Ward's specimen represents a hitherto unknown species, and it may be termed Listracanthus Wardi in honour of its discoverer.
  22. ^ Anonymous; W.H. (3 December 1906). "Death of Ald. John Ward, J.P, F.G.S., Of Longton". The Sentinel: 6. Wikidata Q135009861.
  23. ^ Adams, Julie. "Library: Mining 100: Mining connections with University of Staffordshire". University of Staffordshire. Retrieved 22 June 2025.
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