Sir Henry George Ward GCMG (1797–1860) was an English diplomat, politician, and colonial administrator.

 

He was the son of Robert Ward (who in 1828 changed his surname by sign manual to Plumer Ward) and his first wife Catherine Julia Maling, daughter of daughter of C. J. Maling of West Herrington, County Durham; and the cousin of William Ward and William George Ward. He was born in London on 27 February 1797. Educated at Harrow School, and sent abroad to learn languages, he became in 1816 attaché to the British legation at Stockholm, under Sir Edward Thornton. He was transferred to The Hague in 1818, and to Madrid in 1819. He was appointed joint commissioner to Mexico in October 1823, and returned to England in 1824; again went out to Mexico in 1825, as chargé d'affaires, but returned and retired from the diplomatic service in 1827.

 

In May 1849 Ward was appointed Lord High Commissioner to the Ionian Islands, a post he held to 1855. The islands were then under the protection of the British Crown. He arrived at Corfu on 2 June 1849, found the local assembly unworkable and prorogued it. On 1 August 1849 he proclaimed an amnesty to those who had taken part in the rebellion in Cephalonia against his predecessor, John Colborne, 1st Baron Seaton. By the end of August there was a fresh insurgency; he went to Cephalonia, and suppressed it by October. His actions were criticised in the House of Commons. The rest of his time was more peaceful, but Ward used his prerogative powers freely to banish newspaper editors of papers and members of the assembly. He left on 13 April 1855.

 

Ward on 11 May 1855 became governor of Ceylon. His first speech, that year, dealt with railways; he developed also economic policy on communications and telegraphy, and immigrant labour. He also consolidated the public administration. On the outbreak of the Indian rebellion of 1857 he despatched all the European troops in the colony to Bengal.

 

He succeeded Sir Charles Trevelyan as Governor of Madras in June 1860 but served in that capacity only for a few weeks until his death from cholera on 2 August.[2] He is buried in St. Mary's Church, Madras.

 

Ward was made a G.C.M.G. in 1849. A statue was erected to him at Kandy.