The Warden is a novel by British author Anthony Trollope, the first of his
Barsetshire novels that was published in 1855.
Reverend Septimus Harding is a gentle elderly clergyman who has been appointed by the Bishop of Barchester to be warden of Hiram's Hospital. The hospital is an almshouse for 12 old men funded from a medieval charity. An unworldly man, Mr. Harding never questions the discrepancy between his comfortable annual salary and the small weekly allowance given to the old men, until the issue is taken up by a local reformer, John Bold, denouncing it as a church abuse through the local newspaper
Jupiter.
John Bold is the suitor of Eleanor, Mr. Hardy's youngest daughter. Bold abandons the campaign at her request so as not to worry her father. Unfortunately, the case drags on, joined between the metropolitan reformers and the conservative clerical party led by Archdeacon Grantly, Mr. Harding's son-in-law. From all these wranglings, the warden resigns without airing his thoughts on the matter.
Bold eventually marries Eleanor. Mr. Harding leaves his pleasant home and garden for lodgings in Barchester.
The Warden, is a subtle study of the clash between the individual
conscience and the public persuasion. A characteristic of Trollope's works, it is one of the best and finest.