Like many other members of the Catholic gentry in penal times, Margaret Ward had to earn a livelihood in domestic service. She was born in Cheshire at Congleton and went to live in London with another gentlewoman named Mrs Whitall, probably in the capacity of companion or housekeeper.

The Catholics of the district around Bridewell, where she lived, were much agitated by the plight of a secular priest named Richard Watson who was imprisoned in the gaol there. Margaret would hear his story, how during his first imprisonment he had been so weakened by starvation, vermin and close confinement in the fetid atmosphere of the place, that he had renounced his faith and attended a Protestant service.

Afterwards, his conscience becoming a greater misery than all he had endured in the gaol, nothing would satisfy him but to go to confession and be reconciled.