In 1649, he became Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford University, and gained a high reputation by his theory of planetary motion, propounded in the works entitled In Ismaelis Bullialdi astronomiae philolaicae fundamenta inquisitio brevis (Oxford, 1653), against the cosmology of Ismael Boulliau, and Astronomia geometrica (London, 1656) on the system of Kepler.[2][6]
About this time he was engaged in a decades-long philosophical controversy with Thomas Hobbes:[2][7] Seth Ward and John Wallis, both Savilian professors and members of the Anglican clergy, felt offended by the works of Hobbes, particularly after Leviathan was released.[7]: 273
A small part of the debate with John Webster launched by the Vindiciae academiarum he wrote with John Wilkins which also incorporated an attack on William Dell.[8]
He was one of the original members of the Royal Society of London.
In 1659, he was appointed President of Trinity College, Oxford, but not having the statutory qualifications he resigned in 1660.[2]
In his diocese he showed great severity to nonconformists, and rigidly enforced the act prohibiting conventicles (unofficial religious meetings). He spent a great deal of money on the restoration of the cathedrals of Worcester and Salisbury.
He died at Knightsbridge on 6 January 1689.[2]
In 2017 Bishop Wordsworth's Grammar School named its new, fifth house (Ward House) after Bishop Ward.
^ abSiegmund Probst (September 1993). "Infinity and creation: the origin of the controversy between Thomas Hobbes and the Savilian Professors Seth Ward and John Wallis". British Journal for the History of Science. 26 (3): 271–279. doi:10.1017/s0007087400031058.
^Allen G. Debus, Science and Education in the Seventeenth Century: The Webster-Ward Debate (1970).
