artist, poet, b. Montrose, Scotland. He brought his family to Wisconsin in 1845, lived at Neosho, Milwaukee, and finally at Durward's Glen, his rural retreat near Merrimac. He early established himself as a portrait painter of notable Milwaukee figures. His paintings, especially the monochrome "Crucifixion," the "St. Francis de Sales," the "Bishop Henni," and later pictures of fruit and flowers show decided attention to texture and composition. Following his conversion to Catholicism in 1851, he was the first teacher of English at St. Francis Seminary. Durward edited the unique Milwaukee Catholic Magazine (1875), published an early volume of poetry, Wild Flowers of Wisconsin (1872), Poems (1882), and Cristofero Colombo (1887), all of which show lyric and imaginative ability. P. Butts, Art in Wis. (Madison, 1936); M. T. Durward, ed., Durward's Glen [Madison, 1938]; B. I. Durward, Poems . . . (Baraboo, [1917]); P. L. Johnson, Crosier on the Frontier (Madison, 1959); WPA MS.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]