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| Site contents © Copyright Michael Crouch, 2009. This web site was launched on 7 June 1998 |
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The Ward family Tasmania Samuel's wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter of William and Ellen Ward (nee Robinson). She was born around 1822-23. From England the family travelled to Tasmania in 1831 as free settlers aboard a ship called the Rubicon. William Ward was on half pay from the 3rd Dragoons and came to Australia with the promise of being given land. The couple had two children when they arrived, daughter Elizabeth Ward, and the other probably a son named Thomas Ward. During the 1830's, William tried repeatedly to claim his land but was unsuccessful in doing so. In the meantime, he and Ellen had four more sons and another daughter born in 1842. William Ward became the Chief District Constable for the Avoca and Fingal districts in north-east Tasmania. Even today these districts are very rugged areas. Coal was discovered there and many people as well as major landowners moved there as a result. William Ward faced a long battle in his attempts to take the post. The Chief Police Magistrate suggested that old soldiers were drunkards and not trustworthy, and so William was forced to take on assigned convicts to help out with fencing at Oaklands, biding his time. By 1842 he had moved to Fingal with his wife and children to take on the post of District Constable and Stock Inspector for the District of Avoca. A press report from 1842 tells a story of how William Ward walked in on a gang of bushrangers who forced him to his knees at gunpoint and cocked the gun. At this point, another man spoke temporarily distracting the gunman. William took this moment of grace to make an escape, "jumping away with the velocity of a deer". He was shot through the ear as he got away. Bushranger incidences grew in the area and a police task force was set up, headed by William, to scour the area and bring them to justice. By pure coincidence, William was taking tea with an elderly ex-convict and his family when the very same band of bushrangers entered the house. Riley Jeffs searched the house while John Conway stood in the doorway, ordering William Ward into the lounge with the words, "Oh, you're here, are you? We only winged you last time we met, now we will do for you." With that, Ward rushed at Conway, overpowering him. He was then attacked by Jeffs. Conway took the gun and fired. The two leaden bullets broke William's collar bone and first rib, both bullets passing through his lungs. An inquiry suggested that Mr. Hamilton, the elderly ex-convict was involved with the bushrangers since he had sat in his kitchen and did nothing throughout the furore. William Ward died. The two bushrangers were caught shortly after and at their trial, the Chief Justice summed up: "...the victim had been hurried into eternity in a moment, while performing a duty incumbent upon him, leaving a widow and orphan to lament his loss . . . nothing now remains but to pass upon you the awful sentence of the law, which is, that you be taken from here to the place from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, there to be hung from the neck until each of you be dead and your bodies be dissected - and may the Lord have mercy upon your souls." from the Trifler and Literary Gleaner for July 12, 1843 Nearly a thousand people, a quarter of the population of Launceston turned out for the 8am hanging, many having slept overnight in the park. The press reported it as "a revolting spectacle . . . The executioner puts the rope around their necks - the delightful moment approaching . . . a crash from the scaffold, a slight shudder from the crowd . . . unmoved and uninfluenced, save by a feeling that any of their companions should miss such a sight." from the Launceston Advertiser for July 27, 1843 There was no legal recompense for Ellen Ward and her family's loss. The press took up her case and such was the public outcry that the government was eventually forced to act and awarded Ellen a pension of thirty pounds a year for life plus fifteen pounds a year for the upkeep of William's horse of which he had been an expert rider since his days with the 3rd Dragoons. Ellen Ward became the first wife of a person employed in public service to receive a pension. She died in 1889 and was buried in Queensborough Cemetery. Ellen Ward never remarried after the death of William. Four years after his death, Samuel Garrett's wife died at age 23. There is a possibility that the two may have shared a house together in order to bring up their children. Samuel's children at this time were aged six, four and two. The children of both were all baptised together at Wesley Church in Hobart on September 11, 1846. They remained in the Avoca and Fingal districts for some time thereafter. William and Ellen's daughter, Elizabeth, married Samuel Garrett in 1839 and they had at least one child, a boy they named William Ward Garrett. He in turn was married to Mary Elizabeth McGrath whose father was Thomas James McGrath. Before we take up his story however, we shall first turn to her grandfather via her mother's line. William Sherburd's life was one that seemed doomed barely before it had begun. |