He was born in 1851 in Wardington, Oxfordshire, the son of Thomas Ward and Anne (née Barkham).

The second achievement was as the star of Richard III (1912), based on the play by William Shakespeare.

In 1916 Warde filmed another Shakespearean tragedy, King Lear, for the Thanhouser company.

[1] In 1917 he appeared in a Pathe film Under False Colors with an up-and-coming beauty named Jeanne Eagels.

Though Warde lived until 1935 he saw no need to come out of retirement to appear in legitimate sound motion pictures.