John Ward (prophet)

John Ward (25 December 1781 – 12 March 1837), known as Zion Ward, was an Irish preacher, mystic and self-styled prophet, active (in the latter capacity) in England from around 1828 to 1835. He was one of those claiming to be the successor of prophetess Joanna Southcott after her death. His imprisonment for blasphemy prompted the intervention of Member of Parliament Joseph Hume.

Ward was born at the Cove of Cork (now Cobh), in County Cork, Ireland, on 25 December 1781. In July 1790, his parents took him to Bristol, England, where, at twelve years of age, he was apprenticed to a shipwright. His father took him to London in 1797, where he learned shoemaking from his brother, but soon went back to his former trade and served on board the man-of-war Blanche as a shipwright; in this capacity he saw action at the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April 1801.

In 1803, Ward was paid off from the Navy at Sheerness, Kent. He married and returned to the trade of shoemaker. Ward had been brought up a Calvinist, but became a Methodist at his wife's insistence, after moving to Carmarthen in Wales. Unable to experience conversion, he returned to London, resolving to "never more have anything to do with religion". However, after hearing dissenter Jeremiah Learnoult Garrett preach at Lant Street Chapel in Southwark, he joined the Baptists. On Garrett's death in 1806, he aligned himself with the independents, and in 1813, joined the Sandemanians, becoming a village preacher.

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