William Ward's legacy

William Ward died at his home at Kincumber in 1876. While his last days were probably painful and difficult, I have few doubts that he died a happy man. 

Photo right: I don't know when this was taken,  but the hat makes me think of this 'William Ward on regatta day'. This is the only photo I have ever seen of William.

I imagine the thoughts of a 17-year-old William chained below deck on the Almorah  as it sailed away from his native England. He could not possibly have imagined the opportunities that would await him in on the other side of the world. He survived the brutalities handed out by the Convict system and he carved out a new life for himself in the growing British colony.

William must have been an industrious and hard working man to achieve what he did, but he must also have had a sharp mind and an incredible ability to learn. As a convict in Tasmania, he worked six years in public works. This may be where he learned the basic skills of cutting timber from the forests and turning it into the various products needed to construct buildings, such as planks, laths, sleepers, posts and shingles. 

How he learned the seafaring skills necessary to become a Master Mariner will remain a mystery. But it is fair to assume that to achieve this while also building a business as a successful timber merchant was a remarkable achievement.

I think he was also a lucky man to have met and married Catherine Mitchell. Single men greatly outnumbered women in the colony and Catherine could easily have chosen a man closer to her own age if she wanted to. Maybe she saw something in William that matched her own energy and enthusiasm and together they would have made a formidable team.

William and Catherine Ward had 10 children. When William died in 1876, all but one of his children had grown to maturity (William Jnr. died at birth). The eldest five of his children had married and he had 16 surviving grandchildren (two died at a young age). Many of his grandchildren were living in the Brisbane Water district and would have had regular contact with their grandparents. William's oldest grandchild was named after him. William Davis was 20 when his grandfather died and he was already working as a second-generation shipwright in his father's (Rock Davis') shipyard.

William Ward was a lucky man who used his energy and intelligence to make the most of his good luck. He not only made a better life for himself and his wife, but also gave his children and grandchildren a good start in life. He and Catherine forged a large family and they stuck together through good times and bad.

The delinquent daughter

This week I finally found Catherine Mitchell's court records. After waiting for months to get access through the Scottish archives I finally found a copy in the hands of a distant cousin. This discovery was an unexpected bonus, but I will explain that a little later in this post.

What the court records reveal is not a surprise if you have read the summary of the charges and the verdict, but interesting just the same. Catherine Mitchell and her co-accused were charged with 'aggravated theft by housebreaking and also habit and repute, and previous conviction.'

In 1832, Catherine Mitchell and her friend Robina Lochie were both charged with theft and were sentenced by the Sheriff to two months in prison. This was their first offence. The main charge came the following year, probably only six months after their release from the Stirling Toll House (prison). Catherine Mitchell was 14 and was wandering the streets of Alloa with,Robina Lochie and Mary Martin. I think Mary Martin was the older than the other two and was already married. They met up with Christian Cock and Ann Stein, both similar in age to Catherine.

The five decided it would be a good lark to go into the garden of a private house and pick some berries. While they were there, they decided to break into the dairy room and get some milk and cheese. After breaking in, they found no milk or cheese, so took some beer and brandy bottles and some crockery instead.

I have not read through all the statements yet, and some will be hard to decipher, but it sounds like Ann Stein may have owned up to the crime and she is listed among the witnesses. Catherine, Robina, Christian and Ann were all immediately arrested, but Mary Martin had done a runner and was not found before the trial.

It may seem harsh today that three delinquent teenagers would be sent into exile on the other side of the world for a petty theft, but that was the law of the day and the girls would probably have been given a stern warning by the Sheriff at their previous transgression. Ann Stein seems to have escaped punishment - possibly because she cooperated with the Police and only played a minor part in the crime.

Postscript: A more likely explanation as to why Ann Stein was not tried with the other girls is that it was possibly her first offence - in which case she would have appeared in the Sherriff's Court.

Other facts to emerge from Catherine's statement are that her father was John Mitchell, labourer and that he was deceased. Her mother was Catherine McGregor and she was alive and living in the Alloa Parish. This confirms what we had already deducted from other records, although we did not know when John died. We now know that he died sometime between 1827 (when his last child was baptised) and 1832. 

My other discovery this week was the location of William and Catherine Ward's furniture. Joan Taylor made mention of a sideboard, table and chest-of-drawers being in the care of Dorrie Willsher of Wamberal. I did some hunting in the family tree and worked out that 'Dorrie' was Dorris Agnes Beattie. Some more deduction and hunting on ancesttry.com and I made contact with my new-found cousin! She is the granddaughter of Dorrie, who unfortunately passed away some years ago, but her house, with the old furniture, is still in the family.

I am sure we will be able to get some photos of the furniture at some point.

This week I also loaded by first draft of the William Ward and Catherine Mitchell chapter of the family history onto my website. It still has a way to go before it is complete, but if anyone has suggestions, corrections or comments, just let me know. See link below - Note: It is a MS-Word document, and some of the formatting is a bit off when previewed on the web.

• William Ward and Catherine Mitchell

Anyone want a job (unpaid) as proof-reader?

 With the help of the wonderful people at the Gosford Library I found three more parts of the series of stories written by Ephraim Ward in 1922 under the pen name 'Boora Boora'. Unfortunately the archives of the local papers are far from a complete set, so some of the parts may be lost forever, but as I said last week, the parts we have are a wonderful resource.

For anyone interested, I have put together a single document with all I have found out about Ephraim and the text of all of his stories. It is now on my website wardkemp.com. Look on the Ward Page, in the resources section. You will have top scroll through the resources box and look for 1847-ward-ephraim-memories.docx. I have put the year of his birth at the start to avoid any confusion with the other Ephraim Wards – there are at least two more:

• Ephraim Mitchell Ward, son of William, born at Killcare in 1847 (this is 'Boora Boora'.
• Ephraim Mitchell Ward, son of the 1847 Ephraim, born at Balmain in 1884.
• Ephraim McGregor Ward, son of Manasseh, born at Gosford in 1888.

The same happens with Manasseh' name.

• Manasseh Ward, son of William, born at Kincumber on 1851.
• Manasseh Ward, son of the above Manasseh, born in 1885, (died in infancy).
• Manasseh ward, son of Ephraim Mitchell (the 1847 one) born at Balmain in 1886.

This is made to confuse family historians. I have found quite a few people who get the two Manasseh's mixed up, so if you see someone who has our Manasseh's death listed as 1959 - that was when Ephraim's son died.

But back to the Boora Boora stories. One nice little story that took my fancy:

On the western side of the water was old Booker's place. They call the locality Booker Bay still. Mr Booker was a straightforward man and one of the very few who would not knowingly tell a lie. He and my father were very good friends, and the latter used to tell a story illustrating old Booker’s liking for the truth and nothing but the truth in all things. My father had occasion to call at Booker’s place one day and found them at dinner. He was promptly invited to have a pot of tea; but declined and sat smoking and talking for some time. After a while he changed his mind about the tea but was met with 

“no you won't , Billy. I never allow a man to tell a lie in my house.”

Mr Booker told him to look over the door, which he did, and saw board on which the old man had written in chalk the names of men that had told him a lie. 

It makes me wonder if everyone called William Ward 'Bill' or 'Billy', or was it just old Mr Booker!

 I am nearing the end of the first draft of my chapter on William and Catherine Ward. I still have a few outstanding threads of research, but some of those will have to wait for Covid to subside. Hopefully by next week I can put the draft up on the website for comment.

'Our little vessel'

Over the Christmas break I managed to complete my research into William and Catherine Ward's shipping interests. When I say finished, I may find an excuse to re-open this chapter of the story if I ever get to spend time in the Sydney maritime archives which may contain details that have escaped me to date.

I keep going back to the stories written by Ephraim Ward (William and Catherine's son). He wrote a series of articles for the Woy Woy Herald in 1922 remembering his youth growing up at Killcare and Kincumber. The articles were written under the pen name 'Boora Boora', but there is no doubt that they were written by Ephraim Mitchell Ward (not to be confused with Manasseh Ward's son Ephraim McGreggor Ward). 

I have seen three articles referenced so far, but think there may be more. Some were also re-published in the Gosford Times, which is where I have found the two I have. Ephraim writes very well and he paints evocative pictures of life on Brisbane Water. I keep finding phrases in his stories that are familiar from later writings by Charles Swancott and Joan Taylor, so I am certain that these stories by Ephraim were important sources for previous historians.

Two quotes that relate to my shipping research:

At this period, things were bright in the timber trade, and our little vessel averaged a trip a week. The cargoe [sic] was small — about 7000 feet super. — and was principally delivered to a Mr. J. Booth, who had a timber yard at the foot of Margaret Street, Sydney; my father and he were friends.

About '66, mv father sold the little ship and bought the 'Leisure Hour' — so named on account of having been built at odd times. 

 I had already discovered that the Magnet had been registered in the name of E.M. Ward in 1849 and was probably sold to John Booth in 1861. I asked myself was the 'little vessel' mentioned by Ephraim the Magnet? If so, he was a little off on the timing of the sale.

• The Magnet is registered as a 17-ton cutter, meaning she was rated to carry 17 tons of cargo;
• Blue gum has a dried weight of 920 kg/cubic metre (I am a woodworker and know how to find such trivia);
• Allowing that the timber would not have been fully seasoned, lets assume 1 cubic metre of sawn hardwood might weigh about one ton (yes I know I am mixing imperial and metric here, but this allows for the small difference between imperial tons and metric tonnes); 
• 7,000 super feet of hardwood is about 16.6 cubic metres or 16.6 tons.

It is therefore reasonable to assume that the 'little vessel' mentioned by Ephraim was the Magnet and his 'my father sold the little ship' confirms that William was the owner, not Ephraim as the registration said. Ephraim was a few years out in his estimate of when it was sold but that is also reasonable, because he was remembering events from 60 years before! I think it is also highly possible that the Magnet continued to carry Ward timber to John Booth's timber yard. Booth remained the owner until 1873.

I am not sure that William acquired the Leisure Hour immediately after he sold the Magnet but the sale probably marked William's retirement from the commercial shipping trade. He would have been in his early 60s by then. He may not have retired completely, but was possibly slowing down and Catherine and his children were becoming more involved in the timber business. Manasseh would have been 10 when the Magnet was sold, and would probably have started full time work 4 or 5 years after that.

I have now loaded my research notes on William Ward's shipping interests onto my website. Look under the 'resources' heading on the 'Ward', where I have named the file '1840-ward-wm-shipping-research-notes.docx'. You may have to scroll the file window to find it.