James Redding WareJames Redding Ware (1832-c 1909, pseudonym Andrew Forrester) was a British writer, novelist and playwright, creator of one of the first female detectives in fiction. James Redding Ware was born in Southwark, south London, in 1832, the son of JamesWare, a grocer, and Elizabeth, nee Redding. By 1851, his father had died, and his mother, according to the census, was a grocer and tea-dealer, and James Redding Ware was her assistant. By 1861, the household is no longer in place, and J. R. Ware is not readily identifiable in the census.[1] But in 1865, James Redding Ware became a Freemason, at the Westbourne Lodge No. 733, and he was living in Peckham. (He became a Junior Warden at the Urban Lodge, no. 1196, and by 1872 a Worshipful Master (WM).)[2] His detective works include: The Female Detective (c.1863/4),[3] 'edited by A.F.'; Secret Service, or, Recollections of a City Detective (?1864); The Private Detective and Revelations of the Private Detective (both c.1868). Forrester was for many years known to be a pseudonym, but who he was actually, was unknown. However, recently one of his stories, 'A Child Found Dead: Murder or No Murder?', was discovered, reprinted as a pamphlet and published under the name of J. Redding Ware, as 'The Road Murder', an analysis of the Constance Kent case.[4] With this as a clue, Forrester/Ware's first stories of the female detective can be found in a journal entitled Grave and Gay in summer 1862, which makes his female detective predate the 1863/4 appearance of [?W. S. Hayward], The Revelations of a Lady Detective[5] although not that of Ruth Trail. In 1860 a novel, The Fortunes of the House of Pennyl. A Romance of England in the Last Century (Blackwood's London Library) was published, with illustrations by Phiz, under the name J. Redding Ware. By 1868, he was a contributor to the Boy's Own Paper, the series of penny-bloods owned by Edwin Brett, although no particular work has been attributed to him. He also contributed to Bow Bells Magazine.[6] He was also the author of The Death Trap, a play staged at the Grecian Saloon, City Road, Shoreditch, with George Conquest, the theatre manager, as the villain.[7] He had now become a jobbing writer for hire, producing books on chess; a book on the Isle of Wight with photographs by William Russell Sedgefield and Frank Mason Good ; a volume of The Life and Speeches of His Royal Highness Prince Leopold; Mistaken Identities. Celebrated Cases of Undeserved Suffering, Self-Deception, and Wilful Imposture; as well as writing extensively for magazines. His only seeming connection to his early days as a writer of detective stories was with the publication, possibly in 1880,[8] of Before the Bench: Sketches of Police Court Life (London, Diprose & Bateman). Posthumously, however, he was most famous for Passing English of the Victorian Era. A Dictionary of Heterodox English Slang and Phrase (London, Routledge, 1909), published shortly after his death. Read More Read Less