Well known local identity

Advertisement from the Gosford Times in 1952.
(the highlighting is not relevant to this story.)

I continued researching the children and grandchildren of Manasseh and Madeline Ward this week. I came across several who like Manasseh, can be described as 'well known local identity' in Gosford. To put this into context, we must remember that up until 1960s, Gosford could best be described as a country town – the population for the district in 1960 was about 31,000!

At the end of WWII it was even smaller, with an estimated population of about 18,000. While the railway had arrived in 1890, the Brooklyn road bridge did not open until 1945, by which time the Ward family had been in the district for close to 100 years! It is little wonder that they were well known in town!

But just how well known was demonstrated in 1952. The above advertisement appeared in the Gosford Times on 12 September 1952. The unnamed person who placed the advertisement thought it more helpful to describe his house as next to Roy Ward's than to give the full street address!

Of course Roy was only one of the Wards who would have been equally well known in Gosford including his brothers William and Eric, his sister Amy, his nephews Roly, Jack, Frank, Harold, Eric jnr, Ron, Les, John, Allen, Wallace, and Stan. (His nieces may have been equally well known, but those details are available to me). From everything that I have read and been told, the Wards had a reputation as reliable, honest and hard working people.

While there are still many Wards in the Gosford district, and their character would probably stand up well alongside their ancestors, the area now has a population of a small city - over 160,000 at the last census. I doubt there is any single person in the district whose house could be named as a landmark like Roy Ward's house was in 1952!