Barbara Mary Ward (23 May, 1914 – 31 May, 1981), in later life
Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
economist and writer interested in the problems of developing countries. She urged Western governments to share their prosperity with the rest of the world and in the 1960s turned her attention to environmental questions as well. She was an early advocate of
sustainable developmentImage:Sustainable development.svg|right|300px|thumb|Scheme of sustainable development: at the confluence of three constituent parts.poly 138 194 148 219 164 240 182 257 219 277 263 291 261 311 264 331 272 351 283 366 300 383 316 394 287 408 261 417 224 424 182 426 154 423 119 415 87 403...
before this term became familiar and was well-known as a journalist, lecturer and broadcaster. Ward was adviser to policy-makers in the UK, US and elsewhere.
Education and early career
Barbara Ward was born in
HeworthHeworth is part of the city of York in North Yorkshire, England, about north-east of the centre. It is sometimes referred to as Heworth Village...
,
YorkshireYorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the British Isles. Because of its great size, functions were increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have been subject to periodic reform. Throughout these changes, Yorkshire has continued to be recognised as...
on 23 May 1914, but her family soon moved to
FelixstoweFelixstowe is a seaside town on the North Sea coast of Suffolk, England. The town gives its name to the nearby Port of Felixstowe, which is the largest container port in the United Kingdom and is owned by Hutchinson Ports UK...
. Her father was a solicitor with
QuakerThe Religious Society of Friends is a religious movement, whose members are known as Friends or Quakers. The roots of this movement are with some 17th century Christian English dissenters, but today the movement has branched out into many independent national and regional organizations, called...
tendencies, while her mother was a devout
CatholicThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
. Barbara went to a
conventA convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
school before studying in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
: first at a lycée, then for some months at the
SorbonneThe name Sorbonne is commonly used to refer to the historic University of Paris in Paris, France or one of its successor institutions , but this is a recent usage, and "Sorbonne" has actually been used with different meanings over the centuries...
before going on to
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
. Though she had once planned to study modern languages, her interest in public affairs led to a degree course in politics, philosophy, and economics at Somerville College, Oxford University, from which she graduated in 1935.
She did post-graduate work on
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
n politics and economics. After witnessing antisemitism there and in Nazi Germany she began to help Jewish refugees, and mobilise
CatholicThe word Catholic is derived from the Greek adjective , meaning "universal". In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. For some, the term "Catholic Church" refers to the church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, made up of the Latin Rite and the 22...
support for any forthcoming UK war effort, although she had initially been "sympathetic to Hitler". With
Christopher DawsonChristopher Henry Dawson was an English independent scholar, who wrote many books on cultural history and Christendom.-Life:He was brought up at Hartlington Hall, in Yorkshire. He was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford. His background was Anglo-Catholic, but he became a...
, the historian, as leader and Ward as secretary, the
Sword of the SpiritSword of the Spirit was a forerunner of the Catholic Institute of International Relations, now Progressio, founded by Cardinal Hinsley in August 1940...
was established as an organisation to bring together Catholics and Anglicans opposing Nazism. It became a Roman Catholic group whose policies were promoted by the
Dublin ReviewThe Dublin Review was an influential Catholic periodical founded in 1836 by Michael Joseph Quin, Cardinal Wiseman and Daniel O'Connell. Quin had the original idea for the new journal, soon persuading Wiseman to lend his support, and next enlisting O'Connell whose Catholic Emancipation campaign he...
which Dawson edited, and for which Ward wrote regularly.
During the
Second World WarWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, she worked for the
Ministry of InformationThe Ministry of Information , headed by the Minister of Information, was a United Kingdom government department created briefly at the end of World War I and again during World War II...
and travelled in Europe and the US. Partly on the strength of her 1938 book,
The International Share-out, Geoffrey Crowther, editor of
The EconomistThe Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in an office in the City of Westminster, London. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843. While The Economist calls itself a...
, offered her a job. She left the magazine in 1950 having risen to foreign editor, but continued to contribute articles throughout her life. As well as writings on economic and foreign policy, her broadcasts on Christian values in wartime were published as
The Defence of the West by Sword of the Spirit. During this time she was also president of the Catholic Women's League and a popular panel member of the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
programme
The Brains TrustThe Brains Trust was a popular informational BBC radio and later television programme in the United Kingdom during the 1940s and 50s.- History :...
which answered listeners' questions. In 1946 she became a governor of the BBC and of the
Old VicThe Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
theatre.
After the war, Ward was a supporter of the
Marshall PlanThe Marshall Plan was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger foundation for the countries of Western Europe, and repelling communism after World War II...
, of a strong Europe, and of a European free trade area.
International influence, and marriage
In 1950, Barbara Ward married
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
n
CommanderCommander is a military rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service...
Robert JacksonSir Robert Gillman Allen Jackson, AC, KCVO, CMG, OBE was a United Nations administrator who specialised in technical and logistical assistance to the developing world.Jackson was born in Melbourne on 8 November 1911...
, an administrator for the UN. Their son Robert was born in 1956, the same year that his father was knighted. Ward continued to use her own name professionally and was not widely known as Lady Jackson. Over the next few years they lived in West Africa and made various visits to India, and these experiences helped form Ward's views on the need for Western nations to contribute to the economic development of poorer countries. For the next two decades both husband and wife travelled a great deal, and eventually their marriage suffered from this. A legal separation was arranged in the early 1970s though Ward, as a Catholic, did not want divorce. In 1976 when she was given a life peerage she used her estranged husband's surname for her title as Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth.
Ward had been a frequent public speaker since leaving university, and by the 1960s her lectures attracted international respect; several lecture series, including some presented in Canada, Ghana and India, were published in book form. Ward spent increasing amounts of time in the US, much of her work there funded by the
Carnegie FoundationThe Carnegie Foundation is an organization based in The Hague, The Netherlands. It was founded in 1903 by Andrew Carnegie in order to manage his donation of $1.5 million, which was used for the construction, management and maintenance of the Peace Palace...
. In 1957 Harvard gave her an honorary
LittDDoctor of Letters is a university academic degree.In the United Kingdom, Australia, India and certain other countries, the degree is a higher doctorate, above the Doctor of Philosophy , and is issued on the basis of a long record of research and publication. The degree D.Litt...
and until 1968 she was a Carnegie fellow there, living for part of each year in
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen....
, Massachusetts. She got to know
Adlai StevensonAdlai Ewing Stevenson II was an American politician, noted for his intellectual demeanor, eloquent oratory, and promotion of liberal causes in the Democratic Party. He served one term as governor of Illinois, and received the Democratic Party's nomination for president in 1952 and 1956; both times...
and John F Kennedy and acted as adviser to various influential policy makers, including
Robert McNamaraRobert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968. Following that he served as President of the World Bank from 1968 until 1981...
at the
World BankThe World Bank is an international financial institution that provides leveraged loans to poorer countries for capital programs, tied to neoliberal market restructurings...
and Lyndon B Johnson, who welcomed her thoughts on his
Great SocietyThe Great Society was a set of domestic programs proposed or enacted in the United States on the initiative of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education,...
projects despite her opposition to the
Vietnam warThe Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975...
. She also influenced
James WolfensohnJames David Wolfensohn KBE, AO was the ninth president of the World Bank Group.-Early life:Wolfensohn was born in Sydney, Australia on 5 December 1933, to Jewish parents who had immigrated from England during the Great Depression.
He was educated at Sydney Boys High School, studied...
's thinking on development questions. She had influence in the
VaticanThe Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, commonly known as the Pope, and is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and speaks for the whole Catholic...
, helped set up a
pontificalPontifical may refer to the Roman Pontifical, a Roman Catholic liturgical book used by a bishop.When used as an adjective, Pontifical may be used to describe things related to the office of a bishop, such as the following:*Solemn Pontifical Mass...
commission for justice and peace, and in 1971 was the first woman ever to address a
synodA synod is a council of a church, usually a Christian church, convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application...
of Roman Catholic bishops.
One of her proposals was that richer countries should commit a certain proportion of their GNP in aid to the developing world, and she also spoke of the need for institutions to enable and manage both 'aid and trade'. This was a practical as well as an ethical concern: Ward believed such policies would encourage stability and peace. She is sometimes called a "distributist".
Environmental concerns
Ward started to see a close connection between wealth distribution and conservation of planetary resources.
"… the careful husbandry of the Earth is sine qua nonSine qua non or conditio sine qua non was originally a Latin legal term for " without which it could not be" or "but for..." or "without which nothing." It refers to an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient.As a Latin term, it occurs in the work of...
for the survival of the human species, and for the creation of decent ways of life for all the people of the world." She used the phrases "inner limits and "outer limits" to refer to the inner limits of the human right to an adequate standard of living and the outer limits of what the Earth can sustain. In 1966, she published
Spaceship Earth and is sometimes said to have coined
the phraseSpaceship Earth is a world view term usually expressing concern over the use of limited resources available on Earth and the behavior of everyone on it to act as a harmonious crew working toward the greater good....
.
With hindsight, Ward is seen as a pioneer of
sustainable developmentImage:Sustainable development.svg|right|300px|thumb|Scheme of sustainable development: at the confluence of three constituent parts.poly 138 194 148 219 164 240 182 257 219 277 263 291 261 311 264 331 272 351 283 366 300 383 316 394 287 408 261 417 224 424 182 426 154 423 119 415 87 403...
. She and
René DubosRené Jules Dubos was a French-American microbiologist, experimental pathologist, environmentalist, humanist, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his book So Human An Animal.
, co-authors of
Only One Earth (ISBN 039330129X), have been described as "parents" of a concept which "did not know its own name at first".
Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet was written for the 1972 UN
Stockholm' is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the Riksdag , and the official residence of the Swedish Monarch as well as the prime minister. The Monarch resides at Drottningholm Palace outside of Stockholm since 1980 and uses the Royal Palace of...
conference on the Human Environment. The report was commissioned by
Maurice StrongMaurice F. Strong, PC, CC, OM, FRSC is one of the world’s leading proponents of the United Nations' involvement in world affairs. Supporters consider him one of the world's leading environmentalists...
, secretary general of the
United Nations Conference on the Human EnvironmentThe United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was an international conference convened under United Nations auspices held in Stockholm, Sweden from June 5-16,1972...
.
Ward's work was rooted in her sense of morality and Christian values. She saw care of the environment and concern for the well-being of all humankind as a "dual responsibility", especially for anyone sharing her religious outlook. At the same time, she believed wealth distribution combined with conservation was essentially a rational policy:
We are a ship’s company on a small ship. Rational behaviour is the condition of survival.
In 1971 she founded the
International Institute for Environment and DevelopmentThe International Institute for Environment and Development is a London-based policy research centre and think tank.- History :IIED was established by the economist Barbara Ward in 1971...
(IIED), acting as president from 1973 and chairman from 1980.
Later life
Ward had recovered from cancer in the late 1940s thanks, she believed, to the spiritual support of Padre Pio. The illness recurred twenty years later but surgery did not cure her. In 1973 she retired from
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
where she had been Schweitzer Professor of Economic Development for the previous five years and went to live in
LodsworthLodsworth is a small village and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England. It is situated between Midhurst and Petworth, half a mile north of the A272 road...
,
SussexSussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is a historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
. The next year she was made a
DBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
, and in 1976 a life peer as
Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, of Lodsworth in the County of West Sussex. She wrote her last book,
Progress for a Small Planet, despite her deteriorating health, discussing the "planetary community", dwindling resources used up too fast by wealthy countries, and the needs of poorer parts of the world. It was published in 1979, two years before her death on 31 May 1981, aged 67.
Pope John Paul IIPope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła served as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death almost 27 years later. His was the second-longest pontificate; only Pope Pius IX served longer...
sent a
CardinalA cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually a bishop, of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and making themselves available...
to represent him at Ward's
requiemThe Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as the Missa pro defunctis or Missa defunctorum , is a liturgical service of the Roman Catholic Church celebrated by the priest presider for the repose of the soul of a particular deceased person or persons...
service. At her own request, she was buried in the graveyard of the local Anglican parish church.
UN conferences
Barbara Ward was involved in:
- 1972 Stockholm
' is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the Riksdag , and the official residence of the Swedish Monarch as well as the prime minister. The Monarch resides at Drottningholm Palace outside of Stockholm since 1980 and uses the Royal Palace of...
Conference on Human Environment (Earth Summit I)
- 1974 Cocoyoc
Yautepec is a city and its surrounding municipality of the same name located in the north-central part of the Mexican state of Morelos. It stands at ....
Declaration, UNEP/UNCTAD Symposium on Patterns of Resource Use, Environment and Development strategies
- 1976 Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal city and major seaport located in the Lower Mainland of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. The city is bounded by English Bay, Burrard Inlet, the Fraser River, the city of Burnaby, and the University Endowment Lands. Vancouver is named after Captain George Vancouver, a...
Habitat Conference on Human Settlements
Selected works
- The International Share-out (1938)
- Turkey (1941)
- Defence of the West (1942)
- The West at Bay (1948)
- Policy for the West (1951)
- Faith and Freedom (1954)
- Britain's interest in Atlantic union (1954)
- Interplay of East and West (1957)
- India and the West (1961)
- The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations (1961)
- The Plan under Pressure (1963)
- Nationalism and Ideology (1966) - lecture series - Carleton University
Carleton University is an international, comprehensive university located in Canada's capital of Ottawa, Ontario. Founded as a small college in 1942, Carleton now offers over 65 programs in a diverse range of disciplines, including public affairs, journalism, film studies, engineering, high...
- Spaceship Earth (1966), ISBN 9780231085861. See also, Survival of Spaceship Earth in 1972; Ward co-wrote and appeared in this documentary film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278756/fullcredits#writers.
- The Lopsided World (1968) - lecture series - Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Johns Hopkins also maintains full-time campuses elsewhere in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Italy, China, and Singapore...
- Only One Earth (1972) - with René Dubos
René Jules Dubos was a French-American microbiologist, experimental pathologist, environmentalist, humanist, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his book So Human An Animal.
- A new creation? Reflections on the environmental issue (1973)
- The Home of Man (1976)
- Progress for a Small Planet (1979)
External links