Barbara Ward—Lay Woman Extraordinaire

Barbara Ward articulated the great issues of the twentieth century often with a prophetic voice. Analyzing the economic crisis of postwar Europe, she argued for a western association of nations (precursor of the European Union), and very early on her writing chronicled the facts of Soviet hostility. Her most resounding and even revolutionary contribution to socio-economic policy became her signature theme—the obligation in justice of rich nations to share with poor nations. And, again prophetically, she was one of the first international figures to speak out on the necessity of caring for the environment.

She was a keen observer, often close to major political figures of her time. But most important to her enlightening and often challenging vision was her deep religious faith.

Born in England in 1914 to a Catholic mother and a Quaker father her faith perspective was unusual from the beginning. Raised as a Catholic and a faithful one all of her life, her sense of justice surely had Quaker inspiration. Her upbringing was also unusual for the time in that her father insisted that she have the equivalent education of her older brother. Thus, in her teens she attended a lycee in Paris. She later studied at the Sorbonne and Oxford.

My biography Barbara Ward—Her Life and Letters ¹ is based on her own writings: her thirteen books, countless articles for The Economist and other publications and, importantly, her letters. The letters, deposited in the Georgetown University Archives, were written to family and close friends. Many were personal but also contain a running chronicle of her public life and her thinking on issues of the time. It is the latter which are quoted. Commentaries on some of her books are included along with boxed quotations from articles or books. Often provocative when written, many are remarkably relevant today.

Although she began writing while still a student (an article while at Oxford discussed the place of women students with humor and irony), her writing career began in earnest with the publication in 1938 of her first book, The International Share-out ² that dealt with issues of colonialism. It foreshadowed her lifelong concern with developing nations. The following year she joined the staff of The Economist where she remained fulltime for eleven years but never totally severed her ties.

Barbara Ward, approximately 1945 when she was foreign editor of The Economist.

Her first on-the-ground experience of a developing nation came in October 1952 when the Indian Government invited her and her husband, Robert Jackson, to study and assess its "five year economic plan." To this task, Robert brought administrative and development skills, and Barbara went as observer and writer.

The following year Robert was appointed chairman of the Volta River Project, a hydroelectric scheme in the Gold Coast, so they would now be living in a colony on the cusp of independence. It was not an assignment they had sought, chiefly because of the difficult climate, but they went determined to do a good job.

That same year I began as a volunteer with the Catholic Mission in Accra, the Gold Coast capitol. By a happy circumstance I was invited to stay with the Jacksons the first weeks I was in Accra and returned to their home from time to time during the year so I was able to get to know and observe this brilliant, yet unassuming, woman.

One conversation I never forgot. At tea one afternoon she remarked that she found the "parable of the talents" one of the most frightening in scripture. I wondered why someone as accomplished as she was would even bother to reflect on the passage much less find it frightening. It was, I believe, because she was a woman of deep faith with an extraordinary capacity for profound and even unsettling insights.

At the time she was working on Faith and Freedom ³ which she termed "one writer's attempt to wrestle with the angel of history." It is a panoramic view of human history, from ancient times to the present, an account of human...