He was born at 8 Higher Downs, Bowdon, Cheshire (now Greater Manchester) on 8 January 1867, the fourth and last child of Thomas and Sarah Coward. His father was a Congregational minister and in business as a partner in the firm of Melland and Coward, textile bleachers.
He wrote extensively on natural history, local history and Cheshire. Coward"s siblings were Charles, Alice and Annie. After an education at Brooklands School, Sale and at Owens College (now Manchester University), Coward worked in the family business for 19 years, before it was taken over by the Bleachers" Association.
His share of the proceeds from the sale of Melland and Coward was sufficient to allow him to retire from business and concentrate on his love of wildlife and the study of birds, which had developed as a child.
He began writing articles on natural history for newspapers including The Liverpool Daily Post, The Chester Cournant and The Manchester Guardian for which he wrote the "Country Diary" column until his death. General interest magazines for which he wrote included The Field and Country and in specialist journals such as The Zoologist, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London and British Birds.
His first book was The Birds of Cheshire, published in 1900, when he was living in Hale. His three-volume The Birds of the British Isles and their eggs (1920–1925) was illustrated by Archibald Thorburn and was "acknowledged as being the book that did more to popularise the study of birds than any other publication produced during the first part of the twentieth century".
lieutenant was revised by Arnold Boyd for a new edition in 1950.
He co-wrote articles and books on ornithology with Charles Oldham, a former schoolmate. There is a Blue Plaque at his former home, Brentwood Villa, 6 Grange Road, Bowdon, to which he moved in 1911. On his death, the 14-acre (57,000 m2) Cotterill Clough Nature Reserve was bought, by public subscription, in his honour.
All of his field notes are archived at in the Department of Zoology at Oxford.
Acting Keeper of the Manchester Museum (During World War I)
Chairman and President of the Altrincham and District Natural History and Literary Society
President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.
