| William Ward, 4th Earl of Dudley | |||||||||
| Birth Date: | 5 January 1920 | ||||||||
| Education: | Christ Church, Oxford | ||||||||
| Father: | William Ward | ||||||||
| Relatives: | Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (grandfather) | ||||||||
| Spouse: | |||||||||
| Children: | 10 | ||||||||
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William Humble David Ward, 4th Earl of Dudley (5 January 1920 – 16 November 2013[1]), styled Viscount Ednam from 1932 to 1969, was a British peer, a member of the House of Lords from 1969 to 1999.
Ward was the son of William Ward, 3rd Earl of Dudley, and Lady Rosemary Millicent Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, only surviving daughter of Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland. He was a godson of the Duke of Windsor and was brought up at Himley Hall at a time when the family owned 30,000 acres in Staffordshire and Worcestershire. In July 1930, his mother was killed in the Meopham air disaster. His father was a close friend of the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, who spent his last weekend as king at Himley Hall, before his abdication in 1936.[2]
Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, the future 4th Earl was commissioned into the Royal Hussars (Prince of Wales's Own), and was wounded on active service in the Second World War. Between 1942 and 1943 he served as aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Archibald Wavell the Viceroy of India.
Dudley ceased to sit as a member of the Lords on 11 November 1999, following the retirement of many of the hereditary seats from the legislature by the House of Lords Act 1999.
He was the paternal uncle of actress and former model Rachel Ward and the environmental activist Tracy Louise Ward (now Duchess of Beaufort) who are the daughters of the 4th Earl's youngest brother, the Hon. Peter Alistair Ward.
Lord Dudley married firstly Stella Carcano y Morra, daughter of Dr. Don Miguel Angel Carcano. They married on 10 January 1946 and had three children:
Lord and Lady Dudley divorced in 1960.
Lord Dudley remarried in Amersham on 24 August 1961. His second wife was Maureen Swanson the Scottish actress and socialite (25 November 1932 – 16 November 2011). Together they had seven children:
The 4th Earl died on 16 November 2013 and was laid to rest in the private burial ground of the Earls of Dudley at the rear of the parish church at Himley.