His grandfather, Richard Perry Ledward, had been a Staffordshire master potter with the firm of Pinder, Bourne & Co. of Burslem.

[2] In 1913 Ledward won both the British Prix de Rome scholarship for sculpture and the Royal Academy's travelling award and gold medal.

[2] In 1936, Ledward designed four sculpted allegorical figures on the front of The Adelphi Building facing the River Thames in London.

He was seen as loyal to the values of the Academy, a defender of its academic traditions, but also ready to support good modern work.

[3] His portrait busts in marble include those of Bishop de Labilliere (1944), the actress Rachel Gurney (1945), and Admiral Sir Martin Dunbar-Nasmith VC (1947).

[8] Ledward designed the bronze figures of Saint Nicholas and Saint Christopher at the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street (1952), the fountain in Sloane Square (1953), the new Great Seal of the Realm of 1953 and the 1953 crown coin for the coronation of Elizabeth II, of which more than five million were minted.

[3] His last work was a stone frieze with the title Vision and Imagination for Barclays Bank in Old Bond Street, in the West End of London.

After a failed attempt to install it in St George's Hospital in Tooting, the dismantled frieze was handed over to Public Monuments and Sculpture Association member Don Riley.