The Mary Ward Centre, previously the Mary Ward Settlement, is an adult education college located in London. It was founded by Mary Augusta Ward as the Passmore Edwards Settlement, financed by John Passmore Edwards.
There is one centre at 42 Queen Square, where over 1,000 adult education classes are offered.
The former centre at 5 Tavistock Place (1898), designed by Arnold Dunbar Smith and Cecil Claude Brewer is considered to be one of the best Arts and Crafts buildings in London. The original centre (originally the Passmore Edwards Settlement) is notable for two reasons: It was the site of the historic debate on women's suffrage between Millicent Garrett Fawcett and Mary (Mrs Humphry) Ward, Feb 1909 (Ward was president of the Anti-Suffrage League; she was decisively defeated); secondly the building housed the first fully equipped classrooms for children with disabilities and pioneered the importance of play within children's education.
Famous quotes containing the words ward and/or centre:
“There were times when I felt that I could bear no more. It was the Emergency Ward which almost broke me. I stood one night beside a man who had been caught in a flywheel, and whose body felt like jelly. I wanted him to die quickly, not to go on breathing. Oh, stop breathing. I can’t stand it. Die and stop suffering. I can’t stand it. I can’t.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)
“A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)