Mary Augusta Ward

Born Mary Augusta Arnold on June 11 in Hobart, Tasmania, she grew up in a literary environment with a father who was a professor of literature and as a young lady married Thomas Ward, a writer/editor.

- Mary Augusta Ward -

Mary Augusta Ward began her career writing articles for magazines while working on a book for children that was published in 1881 under the title Milly and Olly. Her novels contained strong religious subject matter relevant to Victorian values she herself practised. Mrs. Ward helped establish an organization for working and teaching among the poor and was one of the founders of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League in 1908. In this latter vein, some of her writings were under the name "Mrs. Humphry Ward."

During World War I, she was asked by Theodore Roosevelt to write a series of articles to explain to Americans what was happening in Britain during the war.

Mary Augusta Ward died on March 26, 1920 in London, England, and was interred at Aldbury in Hertfordshire.

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