himself  into  with  unbounding  energy.  David  Ward  tried  to
walk life’s way with steadfast feet for the church of which he

was not conferred on him until 1953. By all accounts, he
had a tremendous talent for cultivating the public and like
his father, was keenly interested in the welfare of the
village - serving for many years on the Halstead Rural
District Council, where he adopted his family’s Tory
allegiance and was chairman of the village hall committee,
the parish council and a manager at Foxearth school.

He showed many extraordinary qualities. With his flair,
intelligence and expertise, his reforming acumen, David
Ward was responsible for providing the village with
running water, electricity, leisure facilities and relative
mass employment and probably equipped many other
projects that are destined never to come to the surface. His
business prowess gave Foxearth a more prosperous and
egalitarian future. As an industrialist and entrepreneur he
applied technology in a truly imaginative and sophisticated
way, creating a brewery that would win multiple awards
including 3 gold, 27 silver and six bronze medals - almost
certainly the highest achievement for any brewery of any
size anywhere in the UK.

 A month after David Ward’s death, rumour of a sell-out
or a merger circulated the village. This time it was
Tollemache's (later Tolly Cobbold) brewery at Ipswich
which would be the wedding partner with production
moved across the border to Suffolk.

Although the  rumours were denied at the time,
contemporary  accounts  point  to  the  rumour  being
uncannily accurate. The brewery had offered to buy out
David Ward on numerous occasions and his death must
have seemed the ideal time to broach the subject with his
son.

Of course he served the public good, and with his ear for
social nuance and distinction he helped to reform, whether
he was sitting on the board of the Sudbury Board of
Guardians or St Leonard‘s Hospital or as an elected
member on both the Essex County Council where he
remained for 21 years or the Halstead Rural District
Council, where he was a councillor for 48 years.  

In his will he left £38, 122 and asked his son Harold to
‘guard, protect and comfort my greatly beloved wife, and
always endeavour to bring sunshine and happiness into her

The mantle of ownership was now passed to Harold,
whose formative life had been somewhat frosted by his
father’s benevolent but autocratic regime. Intelligent, hard-
working and accomplished, though he had been in nominal
control of the company for over a decade his father still
ruled the firm.

Outside work he was able and eloquent entertainer,
beyond his articulate charm, a somewhat reluctant second
chairman and managing director - although the latter title