Sir Patience Ward

Sir Patience Ward was an English merchant and politician who served as Lord Mayor of London in 1680. He was born at Tanshelf and lost his father at the age of five. His mother destined him for the ministry, and sent him to Cambridge in 1643. He turned his attention to commerce and left for London, where he was apprenticed in 1646 to Lancelot Tolson, merchant-taylor and merchant-adventurer trading to France. Ward later set up in business on his own in the parish of St. Lawrence Pountney, where he had bought the manor of the Rose for £5,000, and became “a very considerable merchant”.

On completing his apprenticeship he became a freeman of the Merchant Taylors' Company of which he was Master from 1671 1672. Most of Ward’s trade was with France, and from 1670 he was the spokesman of the influential group of London merchants trading to France who criticized the failure of the Government to achieve a favorable balance of trade.

Ward had a distinguished career as a public servant. He was Lord Mayor of London in 1680 and was elected to Parliament in 1679, 1681, and 1689.