In 1740 he succeeded his second cousin as the sixth Baron Ward and entered the House of Lords.
[2] Ward married firstly Anna Maria, daughter of Charles Bourchier, in 1723.
Ward died in May 1774, aged 70, and was succeeded by his son from his first marriage, John.
His son from his second marriage, William (who succeeded in the viscountcy in 1788), was the father of John Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley, Foreign Secretary from 1827 to 1828.
Mary, Viscountess Dudley and Ward, survived her husband by eight years and died in 1782.