Thomas Wren Ward

Background

Thomas Wren Ward, the only son of William and Martha (Procter) Ward of Salem, Massachussets, and a descendant of Miles Ward, who was in Salem as early as 1639, was born and reared in Salem.

Career

For some years he was a partner in the Boston importing and exporting house of Ropes & Ward. During a vacation trip to England in 1828 he visited his intimate friend, Joshua Bates, recently admitted to a partnership in Baring Brothers & Company, through which connection, two years later, Ward became the resident American agent of the London house. As agent (1830 - 53) for the leading English firm financing the foreign trade of the United States, he held a position of considerable responsibility. The American business of the Barings, almost all of which passed through his hands, annually involved several millions of pounds sterling. He estimated that during his first three years as agent he had granted to American merchants credits, exclusive of bond operations, aggregating $50, 000, 000. His task was to maintain the personal relationship regarded as significant by English merchant-bankers in all phases of their business with the United States - selecting correspondents, granting credits, arranging for the transfer of shipping documents, collecting debts, negotiating loans, and reporting upon prevailing economic and political conditions. Perhaps Ward's most difficult task was that of attempting to prevent repudiation of bonded indebtedness by the states of Louisiana, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the securities of which Baring Brothers & Company had sold to English investors. He exercised a wide range of discretion in managing the affairs of the Barings. It was upon his initiative that Daniel Webster was retained as counsel for the firm, and in an effort to maintain peaceful relations between Great Britain and the United States Ward personally interviewed President Polk in 1845. Inasmuch as Baring Brothers & Company was the only one of the seven leading Anglo-American banking houses to pass through the crisis with unimpaired reputation and credit, Ward's accuracy in judging men and conditions must have been extraordinary. He retired from active business life in 1853. Two of his sons, Samuel G. and John G. Ward, took over the agency, which was managed by the former alone after his brother's death in 1856. From 1828 to 1836 Ward was treasurer of the Boston Athen'um, and from 1830 to 1842 of Harvard. He bequeathed portions of his estate of $650, 000 to both institutions as well as to the American Peace Society and the Boston Missionary Society.

Achievements

• He played an important but unobtrusive part in the commercial life of the United States between 1830 and 1853.

Personality

Although the Barings recognized that his blunt honesty and conservatism caused some more speculative firms, particularly in New York, to regard him with disfavor, they considered him one of the "soundest" men in the United States, and gave him a large share of the credit for the firm's success in weathering the storm of 1837-42.

Connections

He married Lydia Gray on November 13, 1810, of which union were born eight children.

Father:

William Ward

Mother:

Martha (Procter) Ward

Spouse:

Lydia Gray

Friend:

Joshua Bates