William Ward
English Roman Catholic priest (17th century)
Feast: 12 April (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
William Ward (Webster) went to Douai past the age of forty and was ordained in 1608. Shipwrecked on the Scottish coast, he spent three years in prison, then worked thirty years in England, twenty of them in prison.
Zealous and severe with himself, secretly charitable and devoted to hearing confessions, he refused to leave when priests were banished in 1641. He was executed at Tyburn on 26 July 1641, the feast of St Anne, to whom he was devoted.
The miracles
As a martyr he was raised to the altars without a miracle.
Why that counted as sanctity
A late vocation who spent twenty years in prison for the Faith.
The cause
The cause continues. No postulation address is published here yet. Favours received through this person’s intercession, and offers of help, are best sent to the religious order or congregation they belonged to, or to the diocese where the cause was opened; either will pass them to the postulation.
- Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), via New Advent - William Ward
- Wikidata Q8020019 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — William Ward (priest) (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.