Colin Ward was born in Wanstead on 14 August 1924 and died in Ipswich on 11 February 2010, and began his involvement in writing and social criticism at an early age.
While still an apprentice at an architectural firm in 1947, he became editor of the historic London anarchist weekly «Freedom», an activity he carried on until 1960. In 1961 he founded his own monthly magazine, «Anarchy», one of the most innovative anarchist magazines of the second half of the twentieth century, which he published until 1970. From 1971 to 1979 his attention turned primarily to education and the environment, and he became the editor in chief of the «Bulletin of Environmental Education».
In the Seventies he began his activities as a writer and lecturer, again from his experience as an anarchist, urban planner, and teacher. Most of his books deal with the «unofficial» ways in which people use the urban and rural environment, reshaping it according to their own needs. So he wrote about vandalism, urban gardens, self-construction, squatting... He also published books for children - on such fundamental socio-cultural issues as labor, violence and utopia - and on children and their relationship to the urban and rural environment.
His journalistic activity was also intense, including a weekly column, Fringe Benefits, in the «New Statesman & Society», a monthly column, People & Ideas, in «Town & Country Planning», and a lasting collaboration with «The Guardian» newspaper. In 1994 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Middlesex University, and in 1996 he was a visiting professor in the London School of Economics. His latest book, from 2004, is Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction.