Ward was born in Pimlico, London. As a youth, he created illustrations for the well-known book Rejected Addresses, written by his uncles James and Horace Smith. He also created illustrations to the papers of Washington Irving. In 1830 he won the "silver palette" from the Society of Arts. With support from David Wilkie and Francis Leggatt Chantrey, he became a student at the Royal Academy Schools. In 1836 he travelled to Rome, gaining a silver medal from the Academy of St Luke in 1838 for his Cimabue and Giotto, which in the following year was exhibited at the Royal Academy. While a student at the Schools, Ward became a member of The Clique, a group of painters led by Richard Dadd. Like other members of the Clique Ward saw himself as a follower of Hogarth and Wilkie, considering their styles to be distinctly national in character. Many of his early paintings were set in the eighteenth century and were on Hogarthian subjects. He also painted episodes from seventeenth century history, influenced by the thinking of his friend, the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay. He also painted subjects from the history of the French Revolution. In 1843 he entered the Palace of Westminster cartoon competition, but failed to win a prize.
Opposition to Pre-Raphaelitism
In the 1850s Ward came into conflict with the Pre-Raphaelites, especially Millais, whose style of art he considered to be un-British. Ward's painting of Charlotte Corday being led to execution beat Millais's Ophelia for a prize at Liverpool, leading to much debate at the time. His historical paintings led to Ward's commission to paint eight scenes in the corridor leading into the House of Commons, despite the fact that he had won nothing at the original 1843 competition. These were to depict parallel episodes on the Royalist and Parliamentary sides in the Civil War. Ward's paintings depict the opposed figures as if confronting one another across the corridor. 's novel Kenilworth
Later work
Ward continued to paint Hogarthian versions of episodes from British history throughout the 1860s, notably Hogarth's Studio in 1739 the Antechamber at Whitehall During the Dying Moments of Charles II. In the 1870s he painted some modern-life genre subjects, but towards the end of the decade began to suffer painful illness and depression. On 10 January 1879 he was found raving on the floor of his dressing-room, his throat cut with a razor; he was shouting, "I was mad when I did it; the devil prompted me". Medical help arrived, but he died on 15 January at his home, 3 Queens Villas, in Windsor. The inquest in Windsor on 17 January found that he committed suicide while temporarily insane. . Coloured engraving by E.M. Ward/C.W.Sharpe. Shrewsbury Museums Service
Family
In 1843, Ward met the 11-year-old Henrietta Ward ; they married secretly in May 1848, after an elopement aided by Ward's friend Wilkie Collins. Henrietta's mother never forgave the elopement, and disinherited her. Collins may have based the plot of his 1852 novel Basil on the Ward engagement. Henrietta also became a successful painter. She became a notable art teacher after her husband's death and wrote two autobiographical memoirs about their life together. His son Leslie Ward became a popular caricaturist for the magazine Vanity Fair, and later the journal The World, under the nickname "Spy".
