# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Ward, Henry Snowden

​WARD, HENRY SNOWDEN (1865–1911), photographer and author, born at Great Horton, Bradford, on 27 Feb. 1865, was eldest of five sons of William Ward, stuff manufacturer, by his wife Mary, only daughter of Henry Snowden, manufacturer.
After education at Great Horton national school, at Bradford grammar school (1876–9), and at Bradford Technical College, Ward entered in 1880 his father's business. He then with Herbert James Riley established the periodical ‘The Practical Naturalist’ (afterwards amalgamated with ‘The Naturalist's World’), and founded the Practical Naturalists' Society. In 1885 he joined the printing and publishing firm of Percy Lund & Co. of Bradford, for whom in 1890 he founded and edited the monthly periodical, the ‘Practical Photographer.’ He soon became a recognised authority on photography and kindred technical subjects. He left Bradford for London in 1891, and paid his first visit to America in 1892. After his marriage there in 1893 he and his wife, an accomplished photographer, edited in London such photographic periodicals as the ‘Photogram’ (1894–1905), continued from 1906 as the ‘Photographic Monthly’; ‘The Process Photogram’ (1895–1905), continued from 1906 as the ‘Process Engravers' Monthly,’ as well as ‘Photograms of the Year’ (from 1896) and ‘The Photographic Annual’ (from 1908). He also compiled many technical handbooks, of which the chief were ‘Practical Radiography’ (with A. W. Isenthal, 1896; new edits. 1897, 1898, and 1901, the first handbook in English on the Röntgen rays); ‘The Figures, Facts, and Formulæ of Photography’ (3 editions, 1903); ‘Photography for the Press’ (1905; 3rd edit. 1909); and ‘Finishing the Negative’ (1907). For the photographic firm of Dawbarn & Ward (in existence from 1894 to 1911), of which he was a joint director, he edited the ‘Useful Arts Series’ (1899), the ‘Home Workers' Series,’ and ‘Rural Handbooks’ (1902).
Becoming a member of the Royal Photographic Society in 1892 and a fellow in 1895, he did good service on the council. He was one of the first members in 1897 of the Röntgen Society, and was president in July 1909 of the Canterbury meeting of the photographic convention founded in 1886 to promote photographic research.
Literature and topography also attracted Ward, and he and his wife wrote and copiously illustrated with photographs taken by themselves: ‘Shakespeare's Town and Times’ (4to, 1896; 3rd enlarged edit. 1908); ‘The Shakespearean Guide to Stratford-on-Avon’ (1897); ‘The Real Dickens Land’ (4to, 1903); ‘The Canterbury Pilgrimages’ (1904). Ward also edited, with notes and introduction, an edition, elaborately illustrated by his wife, of R. D. Blackmore's ‘Lorna Doone’ in 1908.
Ward was an ardent traveller, and made many lecturing tours in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. His topics were both technical and literary. An enthusiastic admirer of Dickens, he was an original member of the Dickens Fellowship, was chairman of council (1907–8), and was mainly responsible for the acquisition for the Guildhall Library of Frederick George Kitton's collection of Dickensiana in 1908. As commissioner of the Dickens Fellowship he went in October 1911 to America on a six months' lecture tour to stimulate American interest in the Dickens centenary; but he died suddenly in New York from mastoiditis-meningitis on 7 Dec. 1911, and was buried at Albany, New York State. He married on 15 July 1893 Catharine Weed, daughter of William Barnes of Albany, New York, and granddaughter of Thurlow Weed (1797–1822), a prominent New York journalist and politician. She became member of the Royal Photographic Society in 1893, and fellow in 1895, and collaborated with her husband in most of his literary work. They lived for many years at Golden Green, Hadlow, Kent.
[The Times, 8 Dec. 1911; Who's Who, 1911; Photogr. Soc. Journal, Dec. 1911; The Dickensian, Jan. 1912 (with portrait); information from Mrs. Ward.]
W. B. O.