Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 05 June 1931

Fifty Years Wed.

Wombwell Builder Sees the Happy Day

Mr. Frederick Benjamin Ward, head of the Wombwell firm of Messrs. F. B. Ward and Sons, building contractors, and Mrs. Jane Ward, of Barnsley Road, celebrate their golden wedding to-morrow.

They were married on the 6th of June, 1881 at the parish church of Metheringbam, Lincolnshire. Both are 74 years of age, and their birthdays occur within two days of each other, Mrs. Ward being the senior. The couple enjoy excellent health, and Mr. Ward, who prides himself on being a lifelong abstainer and non-smoker, finds great joy in tending his garden. He owns, in fact, one of the prettiest and best cultivated garden plots Wombwell, and is one of the few in the district who have successfully cultivated vines.

Mr. Ward was born at Wakefield, his father being a shoemaker (not a “cobbler,” be it noted!), and at the age of ten the son had to turn out to work. His first employment was in the old Borough Colliery at Wakefield, but his mind visualised something better, and at sixteen be had been bound apprentice as a joiner and mason to the late Mr. F. C. W. Boocock, of Wombwell, father of the present Coun. C. Boocock, and at one time a prominent figure in the public life of Wombwell. Mr. Boocock, it should be mentioned, had married Mr. Ward’s sister, and therefore master and apprentice were brothers-in-law.

Mr. Boocock had formerly been in business in Wakefield, but he followed the wave of industry and settled for a short time at Smithies, near Barnsley, and finally at Wombwell which, in his early days, was beginning to show signs of waking from its primeval slumber. The two of them put down many of the buildings in which plant was subsequently housed at Cortonwood and Mitchell Main Collieries, and when the mine workers came along they worked bard to provide them with dwellings, Mr. Ward acting as outside manager. They also built Stairfoot brickworks and many of the more important buildings in the district.

Together, Mr. Boocock and Mr. Ward were responsible for the fashioning and naming of most of the streets at the west end of the town from Bond Street to John Street, where hitherto there were only scattered cottages.

In 1893 Mr. Ward took up building on his own account and established an extensive business into which he later took his son, Mr. James Ward. He retired in 1911, and since that date the business has been carried on by the brothers James and Roland’ Ward. Mr. Ward has left his mark on Wombwell in a very real sense and the memorial is a worthy one.

Throughout his life Mr. Ward has been closely identified with nonconformity in Wombwell, first at the Wesleyan Reform Chapel in George Street, then at the Mount Tabor Wesleyan Reform Chapel, and for the past twenty years at the Congregational Church, the Sunday Schools claiming much of his interest.

Public life has had no attraction for him, but outside his business he has found useful occupation in promoting and supporting efforts for the improvement of social life. He was one of the founders of the Wombwell Temperance Institute, on the rolls of which he appears as the first President.

Mrs Ward is a native of Metheringham and met her life partner through the fortuitous agency of a friend who happened to take him down to Metheringham for the week-end. A chance acquaintance ripened into love, and the match of fifty years ago has been a happy and, prosperous one.

The worthy couple will receive warm congratulations from numerous friends. Mr. and Mrs. Ward have been readers of this journal all their married lives.