Saltash painter - Walter Reginald Ward

Although not widely documented, Saltash is the home town of a prolific painter who in his day had his work exhibited locally and four decades after his death was showcased in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Walter Reginald Ward was born in Saltash in 1869. At the age of just fourteen he was producing stunning watercolour pictures, including ‘A cottage near the Cheddar Cliffs’ which he described as his ‘Holiday Work’. Ward pursued a career in the navy, which took him to Canada around 1893 and it was there that he married Irene Payzant three years later. They returned to Southsea, Hampshire but in 1901 Irene moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Ward joined her in 1904.  Ward’s naval work saw him move between the two countries until the 1920’s, when he returned to England alone, to paint. Although many of Ward’s paintings are not dated he was clearly travelling around the west of England capturing local vistas, including Oreston, Plymouth (1924), Horrabridge (1926), Lyme Regis (1929), Portwrinkle (1935) and Modbury (1945). More locally he painted Mary Newman’s Cottage (a copy of which can be seen at the Cottage) and Saltash Passage, as well as views of St. Germans, trout fishing on the Tavy, Forder Mill and the pier on Plymouth Sound. From time to time he returned to Canada but his permanent address on the back of his paintings is always listed as ‘Brightleigh’, Saltash, (a property in Essa Road).

Ward joined the Plymouth Art Club and is recorded as having exhibited with them in 1936, and he was living in Newton Ferrers, near Plymouth at the time of World War II. He held the title of Brigadier-General (Retired) at the time of his death in 1952.

In 1994 his daughter, Dorothy, bequeathed a collection of her fathers works to Dalhousie Art Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, along with five paintings by Ward’s son, Richard Payzant Ward. In 1998 the gallery exhibited thirty four of Walter Ward’s paintings, the majority of which reflected his time spent around his home town nearly 3000 miles away. 

All of the work mentioned above, as well as the rest of the collection, can be viewed at http://artgallery.dal.ca/collection/toc/Artist/W.html