Adolphus William Ward was born at Hampstead on 2 December 1837, the second son of John Ward (1805-1890) diplomatist, and his wife Caroline (d. 1905) daughter of the Rev. John Bullock, rector of Radwinter, Essex. He was educated first in Leipzig, where his father served as consul-general, then, from the age of 16, at King Edward VI School, Bury St Edmunds. He entered Peterhouse in 1855, graduating with a first in classics in 1859, and was elected a fellow in 1862. He had entered the Inner Temple in 1860 and was called to the bar in 1866, but never practised. After temporary employments he was appointed, in 1866, professor of history and English language and literature at Owens College, Manchester, retiring thence in 1897. He returned to Peterhouse as Master in 1900, and on the death of Lord Acton in 1902 became editor-in-chief of the 'Cambridge Modern History'. In 1879 he had married his cousin, Adelaide Laura, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Burne Lancaster, rector of Grittleton, Wiltshire. Their only surviving child, Adelaide, married E. W. Barnes (1874-1953) at that time Master of the Temple, later Bishop of Birmingham. Ward received many honours, and was President of the British Academy (of which he was an original member) from 1911 to 1913. He died in Cambridge on 19 June 1924 and was buried at Cherry Hinton. For a fuller account see 'A bibliography of Sir Adolphus William Ward, 1837-1924' by A. T. Bartholomew 'with a memoir by T. F. Tout'. Cambridge, 1926, ODNB, the accounts of him by Peter Giles and William Emery Barnes in 'In Memoriam Adolphus William Ward, Master of Peterhouse (1900-1924)' (Cambridge, 1924), pp. xi-xix, with a short bibliography of his writings, ibid. Pp. Xxi-xxvi; and Philip Pattenden, 'Adolphus William Ward' in the 'Peterhouse Annual Record', 2000/01, pp. 31-55.