Ida Caroline Ward

We have, with the deepest regret, to record the death on 10 October 1949 of Professor Ida Ward after a short but severe illness. Most members of the Institute have long been aware of the great services she has rendered to it in the field of linguistic studies. Not only has she made an outstanding academic contribution, of which Professor Diedrich Westermann writes below; she also worked tirelessly for the fuller appreciation in every quarter of the importance of linguistic studies and the development of vernacular literature for research, education, and social development in Africa. Her lively, shrewd, patient and, above all, kindly personality attracted the interest and co-operation of all concerned, either scientifically or practically, with African languages. Scholars, administrators, and teachers of every country warmed to the quiet determination, measured enthusiasm, and great fairmindedness with which she would present or discuss new developments and opportunities. As Chairman of the Institute's Linguistic Advisory Committee and a member, since 1947, of its Executive Council, Professor Ida Ward gave us invaluable service. All who met and worked with her in committees and conferences in Europe and America, and especially in Africa itself, know well that she embodied in a quite exceptional way our aspirations and scientific standards in the linguistic field, and was for us an ambassador of great value. Her trim, frail presence radiated goodness and common sense as well as high originality of mind. Although she had retired a year previously from her University Chair she was contributing as actively as before to the Institute's work. In his address at a memorial service held in London on 15 October, Professor Turner, Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies, with which she had been so long associated, expressed feelings which we in the Institute fully share, recalling Professor Ward as a great and good woman. Her name is already established in the roll of great women who have done much for Africa.