Josephine Mary Hope-Scott Ward

Josephine Mary Ward (née Hope or Hope-Scott; published as Mrs Wilfrid Ward; 18 May 1864 – 20 November 1932) was a British novelist and nonfiction writer whose works were informed by her Roman Catholic faith. She published ten novels and a novella, including One Poor Scruple (1899), Out of Due Time (1906), The Job Secretary (1911) and Tudor Sunset (1932). Her novels were generally well received during her lifetime, but fell into obscurity after her death. Some of her fiction has been reprinted in the 21st century. She also wrote articles and religious tracts, and edited her husband Wilfrid Ward's lectures for publication. She provided the initial finance for the Catholic publishing house Sheed and Ward, founded by her daughter Maisie Ward and her husband. Biography Josephine Hope was born in Westminster, London, on 18 May 1864 to James Robert Hope-Scott, a lawyer, and Lady Victoria Alexandrina Fitzalan Howard, who was the daughter of the late Henry Fitzalan-Howard, Duke of Norfolk. Both parents had died by 1873, and the children were adopted by their maternal grandmother, Augusta Minna Howard, the dowager Duchess of Norfolk, and brought up first at Arundel Castle and from 1877 at Uckfield in East Sussex. She was privately educated. On 24 November 1887, she married Wilfrid Philip Ward, a biographer who was later the editor of the Dublin Review, a prominent Catholic journal. Both were Roman Catholics, and both their fathers had converted to the church. The couple had five children: the eldest was the writer and publisher, Maisie Ward (1889–1975); their other daughter was also a writer; and Leo Ward (1894–1942), one of their three sons, was a missionary priest. The family lived at Freshwater, Isle of Wight, then briefly at Hampstead, and then at Eastbourne in East Sussex, before settling in 1901 at Dorking in Surrey. Their circle included many prominent Catholics, including Cardinal Newman and Cardinal Manning, intellectuals such as T. H. Huxley, and literary figures, including G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and the Tennyson family. Ward was an opponent of women's suffrage. She was involved with the Catholic Evidence Guild, co-founded by Maisie, and was a member of the Catholic Women's League. She chaired the Women Writers' Dinner. During the First World War, she served with the Catholic Soldiers' Association, and allowed the house in Dorking to be used by injured servicemen.