page_title: Herbert Ward (sculptor)
section_title: Roger Casement
hierarchical_section_title: Herbert Ward (sculptor) / Roger Casement
caption_attribution_description: English: Herbert Ward and Roger Casement
context_page_description: Herbert Ward was a British sculptor, illustrator, writer and African explorer. He was a member of Henry Morton Stanley's Emin Pasha Relief Expedition and became a close friend of Roger Casement while they were working in the Congo Free State. Ward later became a sculptor and lived in France. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre, was twice mentioned in dispatches in World War I, was an officer of the Légion d'Honneur and a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors.
  He left Mill Hill School at the age of 15 and travelled to New Zealand, spending the next three years in New Zealand and Australia. He was "in turn kauri-gum digger, coal and gold miner, stock-rider, circus performer and sail-maker". He then spent a year as a cadet with the British North Borneo Company, but a bout of malaria forced him to return to England.
context_section_description: Ward first met Roger Casement in the Congo in 1884. They became close friends, a friendship which lasted 30 years, and he asked Casement to be the godfather of his youngest son.  Writing in 1910, Ward says: 
  Imagine a tall, handsome man, of fine bearing; thin, mere muscle and bone, a sun-tanned face, blue eyes and black curly hair.  A pure Irishman he is, with a captivating voice and singular charm of manner.   A man of distinction and great refinement, high-minded and courteous, impulsive and poetical.  Quixotic perhaps some would say, and with a certain truth, for few men have shown themselves so regardless of personal advancement.
    Ward helped finance Edmund Morel's pamphlet The Congo Slave State (1903) and introduced him to Casement – describing Casement to Morel, Ward wrote: "No man walks this earth at the moment who is more absolutely good and honest and noble-minded". He also subscribed to the Congo Reform Association, which was founded by Casement and Morel.
  Ward fell out with Casement when the latter traveled to Berlin at the start of World War I to solicit German help for an armed Irish uprising for independence. Ward wrote "the enormity of his action is beyond exaggeration.  He is a traitor pure and simple ...  I have made up my mind to turn him down forever".  He fulfilled his threat, refusing to sign the petition for clemency that was organised in 1916 by Arthur Conan-Doyle after Casement was condemned to death for treason. Joseph Conrad, a fellow officer with Ward of the Sanford Exploring Company and a friend of Casement at that time, also refused to sign.  Ward arranged for the name of his youngest son (Casement's godson) to be changed by deed poll from Roger Casement Ward to Rodney Sanford Ward.
caption: Herbert Ward (left) and Roger Casement, c1886
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