William Ward as a free man

 Back in September, we followed William Ward through his time as a convict in Van Deimen's Land. He completed his sentence in 1824 and I shared the notice from the Hobart paper saying he had been granted his 'Certificate of Freedom'.

We don't know when or how William made his way to Sydney, but Joan Taylor says that by 1825 he was working in the Brisbane Water area cutting timber and shingles. Joan found that there were several William Wards around Sydney, including one who was in constant strife with the law and was eventually executed.

There were two mentions in the government correspondence that Joan thought might be our William.

• An application in 1822 for replacement clothing lost while taking a lifeboat to Port Macquarie. We now know that our William was still in Tasmania, so this could not have been him. The account is still interesting, particularly for my branch of the family who have lived around Port Stephans for the last 60-odd years. 4 men, (including a William Ward) were delivering a lifeboat to Port Macquarie. They were forced by bad weather to shelter on a beach at Port Stephans, where their clothes were stolen by the 'natives'. I wonder in what state they finally arrived at Port Macquarie?
• An application for replacement of a lost Certificate of Freedom. This is dated 24 July 1824, but when you read the whole document, it relates to a Certificate stolen 11 years before, which was before our William arrived in the colony.

I have loaded these two documents onto my website. They are under the 'Disproved resources' section of the Ward page.

I have found a number of mentions of William being among the first four European settlers in the Brisbane Water area, Several local histories talk about William living with some other emancipated convicts at Killcare. These men grew vegetables and kept bees. When they saw a ship passing they would row a boat out through the heads and offer to sell honey to the sailors. 

I have had in interest in beekeeping since I was 16 and worked professionally in the honey industry for 15 years or so - and I was always told that honey bees arrived in Australia in 1822 (aboard the Isabella). I know this has been questioned more recently, but in my books, William will go down as one of the very early beekeepers in Australia! (I have considered the idea he may have kept stingless native bees, but this is unlikely as they produce only small quantities of honey.)

It was more than 10  years before William would get formal ownership of land at Killcare. He seems to have applied for and been granted two parcels of land at Brisbane Water in 1835 and 1836, The first was 80 acres, and the second 150 acres. He had to pay for both parcels - the system of free land grants had ended after Governor Macquarie was replaced in 1821.

The bay in front of William's land became known as Ward's Bay. At some point (probably after the Ward family moved) it was renamed Hardy's Bay.

A key to William's future was the arrival of a new family in the area. William Spears purchased land in what is now known as Pretty Beach in 1834. Spears seems to have had things in common with William Ward in that he was a sawyer and mariner. He moved to Brisbane Water with his wife Sarah and their young family. They established the first Inn in the area, known as the Crooked Billet.

In about May 1836, William and Sarah Spears were assigned a convict to work as a household servant. That convict was Catherine Mitchell, who had arrived in the colony in 1834. William Ward's days as a single man were numbered and at 37, he had met his match.