Myee Poultry Yards

Cover of Manasseh Ward's poultry
catalogue from 1902. Only the cover
has survived.

Manasseh Ward was a noted poultry breeder of his time. He had extensive poultry runs on his Gosford property and had many breeds of chickens. He was particularly known for the multi-purpose breeds which were suited to both meat and egg production. These would have been most suitable for small scale and backyard situations. He was an enthusiastic displayer of his birds at the Gosford Show where he took many championship ribbons over the years.

The Gosford correspondent for the Maitland Mercury wrote about visiting Myee in 1897:

Tired of keeping poultry for months without any return I determined to visit the Myee poultry farm and learn how the proprietor managed to have eggs and chickens whilst his neighbours have none. Mr. Ward was at home, and took me round all his numerous pens. His Plymouth Rock are really magnificent birds, weighing at least ten pounds. It is a pleasure to look at his Indian game, a mixture of Penders and Cadell's strain. After viewing his Minorcas, Orpingtons, Leghorns, Dorkings, and Golden Wyandottes, all of the purest breeds, the visitor is puzzled which class to choose to improve his poultry yard with, but in my opinion his black Minorcas and Golden Wyandottes are most suitable for the ordinary settler, because both are good table birds, and above all winter layers. Mr. Ward assures me poultry can be made to pay : he can scarcely meet the demand for eggs and as he disapproves of the incubator finds it difficult to obtain broody hens during the winter months. With the view of improving the class of district poultry, Mr. Ward says he will show his fowls and give advice to visitors, buyers or not. (Maitland Daily Mercury, 10 August 1897, page 4).

The winter egg-laying ability of Manasseh's hens was put to the test a few years later when the Hawkesbury Agricultural College held its first egg-laying competition. Competitors sent a team of six pullets to the College. The pullets were meant to be on the point of lay. They were housed in identical conditions and the eggs counted and weighed each day. The initial competition held in 1901 was intended to judge winter egg-laying, but was extended to a full year midway through the test. Manasseh had intended to enter a team of Wyandottes, but the final birds were Black Orpingtons. His birds were slow to start laying and at the end of the first month, his team were middle of the field. But by three months he was among the leaders. Manasseh was a clear winner of both the number of eggs and the average egg weight at the end of the intended six months. He was a close third at the end of 12 months, but was declared the overall winner on the basis of prize money earned.

The success of the first competition led to its becoming an annual fixture for many years. It was quickly recognised and by the third year, had to be limited to 100 entrants. Manasseh continued to enter for the next few years, but was never able to replicate his first success (interstate and international breeders flocked to the competition in the following years and competition was fierce). From the second year, he was involved in the organising committee. [Personal note: The laying competition was still running when I was a student at the College in the early 1970s.]

As in other walks of life, Manasseh was very well respected in the poultry world. His advice was quoted as far afield as Western Australia and he regularly exported birds to New Zealand. His faith in Black Orpingtons was shared by many other Australian breeders. In the 1920s the Australian strains of Black Orpingtons were recognised as a new breed, the Australorp. For many years, an Australorp hen held the world record for laying 364 eggs in 365 days, without the assistance of extended lighting practiced by many commercial farmers today.

Manasseh and Madeline Ward's first home

The last serious investigation into the Ward family was over 35 years ago, before the Internet age and the growing wealth of resources available to researchers. That family history concluded that after Manasseh Ward and Madeline Geary Henderson married in 1876, they set up home at the old Ward family property at Killcare, then known as Ward's Bay. This was a reasonable conclusion given that the property had been given to Manasseh shortly before they married. There was also an old family story about an incident during the birth of one of the children. The story was that Madeline urgently needed a doctor, and Manasseh's brother Ephraim set out from Ward's Bay in a rowing boat, to fetch the doctor from Mossman. Ephraim's efforts were in vain as the baby was still-born.

The story about Epraim's heroic efforts in rowing to Pittwater, then riding to Mossman are documented in several other sources, but the starting point of the journey is Gosford in some.

Our earlier researcher made the assumption that that the baby concerned in the story was John, who was born in 1884.

I have looked at this more closely over the last few weeks and obtained the original birth and death registrations for the three boys who died in infancy:

• Thomas Ward was born at Toorigal House, Kincumber on 24 March 1881 and died on 26 March, aged 3 days.
• John Arthur Ward was born at Toorigal House, Kincumber on 23 January 1884 and died at Kincumber on 25 July aged 6 months.
• Manasseh Ward jnr was born at Kincumber on 24 July 1885 and died at Balmain, 2 days after his first birthday.

None of the boys were still-born, but it is most likely that the story of Ephraim fetching help was for Thomas who died aged just 3 days old. 

I also asked myself why did the doctor not come from Gosford. I suspect that answer is that there was not a doctor in Gosford. Early historian George Fletcher (writing as 'Perong') mentions that the District Superintendent of Roads was looked on as the local doctor in the 'early 80s', so it is quite possible that he had not yet arrived in 1881.

We must remember that the practise of medicine was very different in those days to what we have today. The 1880s was still at the very beginning of modern medical science. The role of germs in causing disease was just becoming accepted and most doctors were trained under the apprenticeship scheme rather than by university study. In fact Sydney University started teaching medicine in 1881!

Digging a bit deeper, I discovered that the first two children, Madeline Ward jnr and William Ward were also born at Toorigal House in 1878 and 1880 respectively and notices were placed in the newspaper that the births occurred 'at their home, Toorigal House'.

On this basis I think it very likely that Manasseh and Madeline's first home was not at Killcare, but at Toorigal House, Kincumber. This makes perfect sense as it had been Manasseh's home for most of his life and his mother had moved to live in Balmain. The 'Toorigal' property remained in the Ward family until after Catherine Ward's death in 1898 and it would have been a far more suitable base for Manasseh's work as a teamster than the more remote Killcare property. Kincumber was close to the active centre of the timber and ship-building activities.

Manasseh Ward, Mayor of Gosford

From the Gosford Times

Manasseh Ward entered public life in 1888 when he was elected to the 'Gosford Borough Council'. He was 37.

For most of Manasseh's life there had been no local government as such in the Brisbane Water District and the area was administered by the Police Magistrate. The 'Gosford Borough Council' was established in 1886, with six aldermen, one of whom was elected as Mayor. The Council was a Municipality, only covering the town of Gosford, in which there were only 136 rate-paying properties. The remainder of the district remained under police administration.

Manasseh and Madeline had recently returned to the district after living in Balmain for a year. Manasseh put himself forward as a candidate the second elections for the Council in February 1888. He stood in East Ward which was the smaller of the two Wards in the Council.

On polling day, Manasseh attracted only eight votes, but that was double that of his only opponent, so he was elected! (While only 12 votes were cast in East Ward, there were almost 150 cast in the West Ward). 

In August the following year, the Mayor, George Watt, resigned from the Council. The remaining alderman elected Manasseh Ward to take his place. After serving out the remainder of the Council year, Manasseh relinquished the Mayoral position and returned to being an alderman for the remainder of his  four-year term.

He stood for re-election in 1892, but was not elected. He was elected again in 1896 and remained on Council until 1903. During this second term, he was elected Mayor on six occasions. He was in the Mayoral chair when he resigned from Council in 1903. He resigned because he was 'leaving the District'.

Manasseh and Madeline were not long away from Gosford, but Manasseh did not re-join the Council on their return. He would have been aware that the Council was in financial difficulty and also aware of that extensive local government changes were in the wind.

In 1906 new Shire Council's where established across NSW, replacing all former Police Districts. Erina Shire was established in May 1906. The Gosford Borough remained, now renamed Gosford Municipal Council, but it was completely enclosed by the new Erina Shire. (Gosford Municipality would later merge into Erina Shire in 1907.)

Manasseh was announced as one of the six men appointed to the interim Erina Council which operated until elections were held in late 1906. He was subsequently selected as the interim Shire President, a position he maintained when the new Council was elected. He would remain Shire President for six of the next seven years.

In 1913, Manasseh was 60 years old and had been in local government for 25 years. But his public life was brought to an ignominious end when he was convicted of an offence under the Local Government Act. 

Manasseh had taken out a grazing lease for a park in Gosford in 1903 and paid the lease fees in subsequent years. For some reason that I don't fully understand, this was  ruled a breach of the Local Government Act and Manasseh was fined £50 (the minimum penalty) and disqualified from Council for seven years. The magistrate made it very clear that this was a technicality and that Manasseh had not gained or intended to gain any benefit. The fine was later reduced to £1.

Manasseh resigned from Council, who immediately placed on the record "its deepest regret at Cr Ward’s retirement and expressed its greatest appreciation of the work he has done in the interests of the Council". 

I am sure this would have generated a huge amount of debate in the local paper, but there are no local papers in Library archives from 1913, so we rely only on the snippets published in other newspapers.

In his 25 years in public life, Manasseh had been on one Council or another for 20 years, 13 as mayor or shire president. 

Pulling Manasseh's beard

Lawrence William Ward 1922–2015

My Dad, Laurie Ward, would have been 100 today! And today I have been trolling through the tributes written after the death of his grandfather, Manasseh Ward.

Dad had no direct memories of Manasseh, who died when he (Laurie) was only six months old, but the tales told around the Ward dinner table were so real and so rich that he felt like he knew his grandfather very well indeed.

By the time Laurie came along, Manasseh was a very sick man. He was suffering from heart disease, and towards the end had difficulty breathing and talking. He would sit on the verandah of the Ward home in Gertrude Street and hold court as friends and family came to visit. Dad's family lived just across the road on the corner of Gertrude and Dwyer Street, so they were frequent visitors to Manasseh's verandah. As he grew up, Dad was repeatedly told that he was the only baby ever to get away with pulling Manasseh's beard! 

Maybe that is why, when he grew a beard in later life, he always kept it trimmed quite short.

There are still a few of Manasseh's grandchildren alive today, although Laurie may well have been the last born during Manasseh's lifetime.

When the city meets the bush

An excerpt from an old Parish Map of
Kincumber showing the two properties.

In my last post, I told the harrowing story of the early life of Madeline Geary Henderson, my great-grandmother. The story ended with her moving to live with her brother at Brisbane Water. She was a 21-year-old widow with a small daughter.

Madeline and her brother Robert lived in a cottage on a farm that Robert had inherited from their grandfather, Robert Henderson snr. It was one of several properties left in trust. In the will, it is described as follows:

... all those one hundred acres of land situated at Cockle Creek Brisbane Water in the County of Northumberland aforesaid granted by the Crown to me by Deed dated the thirtieth day of September One thousand eight hundred and thirty nine...

Robert Henderson snr had purchased the farm from the original grantee, William Blizzard in 1828, for a little over £12.  When Torrens Title was introduced it was described as 'Portion 29 in the Parish of Kincumber', so that is the number shown in the above Parish map (dated 1929). Madeline's brother would later sell the property to an intermediary who on-sold it to Mary McKillop for the development of her home for boys. 

The next property but one was known as 'Toorigal' and had been the home of William Ward and his family for more than 20 years and is shown as Portion 115 on the parish map (William Ward purchased the property in the 1850s). William had died in February 1876, but his wife Catherine was probably still running a general store at Toorigal when Madeline and baby Josephine arrived.

You can imagine the stir that the arrival of an attractive young woman would create in the small community. The Ward household included four young people of Madeline's age, including Emily who was 25, Manasseh 24, Emma 21 and John 19. But Madeline was a shy and retiring girl, so it may have needed some sort of event to bring the young people together.

If family stories can be believed, the catalyst turned out to be an unruly dairy bull. Madeline was a city girl, who had spent most of the previous ten years in a boarding school. She was caught in the open by the angry animal and sought refuge in a nearby tree. 

Manasseh Ward was a country boy. He was a superb bushman, expert in handling horses and cattle, so a dairy bull was no challenge. He happened to spot the young woman was trapped and came to the rescue.

This was a momentous meeting of two families with a long history in the Brisbane Water district. Manasseh's father and Madeline's grandfather were among the very first European settlers in the area over 50 years before. The young couple would marry within a year of their first meeting and would go on to establish a large family of their own.