(c1734 - 1794)
Francis Swain Ward was born in Surrey, the son of a landowner. He trained as a landscape painter but joined the East India Company in 1757. As a young lieutenant he resigned after being overlooked for promotion. He returned to England and exhibited with the Society of Artists between 1765 and 1773, but later approached the Company wishing to rejoin and, after some hesitation, was accepted. While in England, Ward had produced a series of Indian landscape paintings, which he presented to the Company. The works were displayed in the Company’s London headquarters, East India House. Ward retired as a lieutenant-colonel in 1787. He illustrated William Orme’s ‘Twenty-four Views in Hindustan’ (1805) shortly before his death in Negatapam, India.
