Patience Ward

Sir Patience Ward (1629–1696) was an English merchant and early Whig politician. He was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1680, a period when the City of London was in conflict with the Crown.

He was the son of Thomas and Elizabeth Ward of Tanshelf, near Pontefract and was born there on 7 December 1629; he received the name of Patience from his father, who was disappointed at not having a daughter. He lost his father at the age of five, and was brought up by his mother for the ministry. He was sent to university in 1643, under the care of a brother-in-law, but then turned his attention to commerce.

On 10 June 1646 he was apprenticed for eight years to Launcelot Tolson, merchant-taylor and merchant-adventurer, of St Helen's, Bishopsgate, with whom he lived until his marriage. He later set up in business for himself in St. Lawrence Pountney Lane, where he occupied a portion of the ancient mansion variously known as 'Manor of the Rose' and Poultney's Inn, the house having formerly belonged to Sir John Pulteney (Poultney): the house is shown in Ogilby and Morgan's 'Map of London,' 1677, and in the plan of Walbrook and Dowgate wards in Noorthouck's 'New History of London' (p. 612). On completing his apprenticeship he became a freeman of the Merchant Taylors' Company, but there was a difficulty about his taking up his livery; in the end he paid a fine. He became master of the company in 1671.

He was elected sheriff on midsummer day 1670, and on 18 October in the same year became alderman for the ward of Farringdon Within. At the mayoralty banquet on 29 October 1675, which the king honoured with his presence, Ward, with other aldermen, was knighted. He was elected lord mayor on Michaelmas day 1680, and entered into office on 29 October following. In his election speech he maintained Protestant principles. The pageant was arranged by Thomas Jordan the city poet; it was of great magnificence, and was provided at the cost of the Merchant Taylors' Company. Ward's sympathies, like those of his colleague Sir Humphrey Edwin, were strongly opposed to the high-church party, and probably inclined to the dissenters.

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