Ada L. Ward

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ADA L. WARD LL.A.



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Go on till oppression and injustice shall be crushed under the feet of a righteous and victorious peace.

ADA L. WARD, LL.A.
MISS WARD is not a war lecturer in the generally accepted meaning of that term.  Her work is unique and individual, and just as no war story of our platform is like hers, so none has been able to create such a furror of acclaim.

It is doubtful if any personage from over seas has so captivated audiences; the record of her Canadian and American appearances is unapproachable from the standpoint of delighted auditors.  Rarely, if ever, has it been the good fortune of this management to present an attraction so uniquely original, so thorough in its satisfaction-giving, so replete with surprises, with ready humor, tender pathos, worthwhile information, practical patriotism.  MISS WARD'S work, since her return from the trenches, is of such high merit as to truthfully permit of applying the term a platform 'find' to her.  During her time before your people she will run the whole gamut of human emotion, from laughter to tears, and back to laughter.  In her lectures With My Blackboard at the Front, or London in War Time, she gives you the best possible idea of the joys and fears, the comedies and tragedies, the hopes and aspirations of the men who are doing the great work of making the World safe for Democracy.

MISS WARD has enjoyed a brilliant educational career.  She is an under-graduate of the University of London, a member of the Paris University, an honor graduate of St. Andrews University, Scotland, has studied extensively in Rome, Paris and Berlin, is an accomplished linguist, and has extensively corresponded for English and Australian newspapers and periodicals.  She has, as have few women, mastered the art of public expression, and her voice, while musically modulated, will carry in the largest auditoriums.



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Honor and liberty are grander than life—greater than death.


Shortly after the beginning of the war MISS WARD was called to duty in huts at the front as a member of Lena Ashwell's Famous Concert Parties, under the auspices of the Princess Helena Victoria.  Here her success was very great; the constant plea of the soldiers being to Send us ADA WARD.  As a result she later returned independently and entertained great audiences behind the lines from Calais to The Somme.  Her descriptions of the cheerfulness and resource, the patience and courage, the gallantry and courtesy, of the sick, the wounded, the dying, behind the lines has no counterpart for dramatic intensity, for human appeal, within the memory of our time.

MISS WARD is an orator, as well as a humorist.  An indication of the former is found in her stirring words, I would rather sleep in a graveyard in Flanders, in Egypt or Gallipoli than live under the black flag of Prussian despotism.  Of the latter, nothing can be more calculated to cause a ripple of merriment that almost conquers the sadness than her story of the two one-armed boys who arranged to sit side by side that they might use their two hands in applauding.

Summed up in a few words (they are those of the Hamilton, Canada, SPECTATOR), is an able description of MISS WARD'S work: Mere words will not describe the elusive witchery and spontaneous charm that linger around ADA WARD.

Briefly these are her topics:


WITH MY BLACKBOARD AT THE FRONT
With the aid of a blackboard, upon which MISS WARD sketches humorous illustrative figures, mainly for comedy relief, there is unfolded the intimate story of the soldier in love and at war, at play and at work, in friendship and suffering,

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I would rather sleep in a grave in France or Flanders than live under the black flag of Prussian despotism.
 in ruddy health and mortal sickness, in the thick of the fight and, at last, in the throes of death.  The blending of high humor with intense pathos in this lecture is regarded by many as one of the greatest forensic efforts of years.  The subject, filled with emotion, with sorrow and misery, is illuminated with brilliant farcical flashes throughout, which, because of the winsome personality of the speaker, is fully informative, yet not sodden or depressing.  With great skill and good taste the audience is made to realize the immensity of the World cataclysm, what it means in life and treasure, in sorrow and sacrifice, without the unduly dwelling on the horrifying and harrowing details of the grim side of war.



LONDON IN WAR TIME
This is an eloquent, and, like each of MISS WARD'S subjects, a humorous appeal to loyalty, honor and patriotism.  It is a fascinating account of a great city's awakening to war.  The experience of a woman menaced in an air raid is thrillingly related, while stories of heroism and stoicism move the hearer to admiration and amazement.  This lecture is a great stimulus to recruiting, very appropriate for war fund benefits, etc.  It is helped out, as MISS WARD puts it, by sketches on the blackboard.



FACES IN THE CROWD
An hour and a half's thorough enjoyment.  A talk on people and their ways.  Lifelike verbal pictures rendered still more vivid by lightning outline sketches on the blackboard.  Various well-known types—the gossip, the loafer, the indispensable man, the useful and the harmful alike—are all made to live before us, conjured up by the magic spell of the lady artist, who adopts the role of that power which will giftie gie us to see oursels as ithers see us.  It is an evening of fun and laughter.



TYPES AND PHASES OF LONDON LIFE
The very heart-throbs of the great city can be heard during this lecture.  Every phase of life is dealt with, each one fascinating in itself—the policeman, the cabby, the street urchin, the coster, side by side with the lady of fashion, the gentleman of clubland, Rotton Row, and Whitechapel in grim companionship.  It is a great awakening of human sympathy; an object-lesson for philanthropist, socialist, political economist; an appeal to the noblest and best ideals of human life.



OTHER MISCELLANEOUS RECITALS
(Held in Readiness for Return Engagements.)

STORIES FROM THE POETS—(Shakespeare, Browning, Tennyson, Longfellow, Maeterlinck.)
STORIES OF FICTION—(Dickens, Barrie, Defoe, Kipling, Joel Chandler Harris.)
STORIES OF HISTORY—(Canute and the Waves; Alfred and the Cakes, Etc.)
RECITALS FOR CHILDREN—(Grimm's Fairy Tales; Andersen's Fairy Tales; Kingsley's Heroes, Arabian Nights, Aesop's Fables, Etc.)





ADA L. WARD, LL. A.
Voice of the Press and Public
HAMILTON (Canada) I can sum your address up in one word, 'Triumph!'  I believe we shall always count your meeting one of the 'red letter' ones of our club.

—EDITH M. THOMPSON, Hon. Sec'y, Hamilton Women's Canadian Club.

WINNIPEG (Man.) It is unanimously agreed that Ada Ward is the cleverest speaker we have ever heard, and we have had Mrs. Pankhurst and others.

—LOUISE SELLERS, Pres., Ladies Society, Westminster Presbyterian Church.


WINNIPEG (Canada) For two hours the vast audience wept big rolling tears and laughed hearty rollicking laughs by turns.  Ada Ward with her mimicry and nimble wit, would cause laughter to bubble and well up, upsetting their dignity and making them 'just a lot of patient souls together' with a common bond of sympathy—a boy at the front.—
MANITOBA FREE PRESS.


GLASGOW (Scotland) You bring the dear ones closer to us.—
TOLLCROSS.


FT. WILLIAM (Ont.) Every available seat was filled.  Ft. William audiences have heard the story of the great adventure from the lips of soldiers, officers and men, but here was a woman and an artist who could talk about Tommy in his quieter moments, who had been 'over there' to amuse and entertain him.—
DAILY TIMES-JOURNAL.

CANON HANNAY (GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM, author of General John Regan, etc., etc.) The lecture was a great success.  The men enjoyed every minute of it.  Miss Ward held their undivided attention and gave them immense amusement.

MISS LENA ASHWELL (Famous English Actress and supervisor of the Famous Concert Parties to the Trenches) Of course they (the people of America) cannot possibly love you as much as the many thousands of soldiers whom you have entertained and made so happy.  Your generosity in giving your services will, I am sure, receive the admiration and love of those on the other side whom you are now going to entertain.

EDITORIAL SECRETARY NATIONAL COUNCIL Y. M. C. A.'s: There is sorrow in the camps.  Requests have come from all directions that you should be sent to 'our' hut, and when I have replied saying you were going to Canada the response has invariably been, 'please ask Miss Ward to come to us when she comes back.'  This will show how greatly your visits are appreciated.

—BASIL A. YEAXLEE.

FORMER CONTROLLER OF TORONTO: I had the pleasure of hearing Miss Ward in the City Hall of Birmingham, England, at a reception tendered by the Lord Mayor.  Her masterly insight into the varied experiences of the soldiers in and behind the trenches, and her appreciation of the humorous and pathetic, placed that large audience under her inspiring influence.  Her remarkable talents place her in the front rank.—HON. JAMES SIMPSON.


A TYPICAL CONCERT PARTY AT THE FRONT


Reproduced from a reproduction.




ADA L. WARD, LL. A.
Voice of the Press and Public—Continued
HON. SECRETARY, SHREWSBURY LECTURES, ENGLAND: From the reports I expected much of Miss Ward, but never dreamed she would achieve such a remarkable success.  Our members were simply delighted.


EXETER (England) She is delightfully witty, thoroughly interesting, vividly descriptive, and withal eminently practical and human in her remarks, so holding the audience that they hardly realized the passing of the time.—
EXPRESS AND ECHO.


VANCOUVER (B. C.) Miss Ward gave an address which, as is usual with her addresses left the people with tears in their eyes and several smile wrinkles around their mouths.—
WORLD.


CALGARY (Alb.) With the aid of her blackboard she kept the great audience alternately in tears and laughter.—
NEWS-TELEGRAM.


BRANTFORD (Can.) She held her audience spellbound.  The best thing heard in Brantford during the war.—
COURIER.


HAMILTON (Can.) Those who heard Miss Ward fully appreciated the success with which she met in entertaining the soldiers.  She kept her audience in a gale of laugher.—
HERALD.


SUDBURY (Ont.) No one more clever has ever lectured from a Sudbury platform.—
STAR.


HAMILTON (Can.) Mere words will not describe the elusive witchery and spontaneous charm that linger around Ada Ward.—
SPECTATOR.


REGINA (Sask.) With wonderful descriptive power, Miss Ward brought to the mothers of Regina a greater insight into the actual lives of the boys in khaki.—
POST.


VANCOUVER (B. C.) Miss Ward delighted a large attendance of Canadian Club members to such an extent that when she concluded the men sprang to their feet and gave her three cheers and a tiger.—
NEWS-ADVERTISER.

LIEUT. GOV. OF BRITISH COLUMBIA: Permit me before you take leave of our Province to offer you, on behalf of its people, my most grateful thanks for a visit which … has proved instructive to those who had the great good fortune to see and hear you from platform and pulpit.—F. S. BARNARD.

LADY GREENALL: I have no hesitation in saying that amongst all the talent we have heard in France no one has entertained the men more than yourself.  It was marvelous how you held them all the time amused and interested.  I have seldom heard anyone whose voice carried so well without any effort.  I can truthfully say that wherever you go you will be an unqualified success.

—FRANCES E. GREENALL, Walton Hall, Warrington, Eng.


RED DEER (Canada) A level head, a loving heart, an exquisite sense of humor—that is Ada Ward.—
ADVOCATE.


AN AUDIENCE OF CONVALESENTS BEHIND THE LINES


From a reproduction of a photograph in the Strand Magazine, London.

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