User:Schwede66/Tools/Crosbie Ward

Crosbie Ward (1833 — 1867) was a New Zealand politician.

DNZB.

Ward was elected unopposed to the House of Parliament in a May 1858 by-election in the Lyttelton electorate. The seat had been vacated by James FitzGerald, who resigned due to ill health. Ward was re-elected unopposed on 25 January 1861.

In the 1866 election, Ward contested the Avon electorate against Bishop (was it Edward Bishop?). They received 265 and 186 votes, respectively. In 1867, he was appointed agent in London for the Canterbury provincial government, and he thus resigned his seat in Parliament.

member of parliament for Lyttelton in 1858. Brother of drowned Ward brothers of Quail Island.

NZETC

remembered by borough council

References

-NZETC- Crosbie Ward, Postmaster-General and Secretary for Crown Lands in the second Fox Ministry, August, 1861, to August, 1862, and Postmaster-General in the Domett Government from its formation to October, 1863, was a young politician of great promise. He was the son of the Hon. and Rev. Henry Ward, Rector of Kilhirchy, County Down, Ireland, and grandson of the Hon. Edward Ward. Born in 1833, and educated at Castletown, Isle of Man, and at Trinity College, Dublin, he was one of the pioneers of Canterbury, where he arrived in 1852. Three years later he was elected to the Provincial Council for Akaroa, and in 1858 he was returned to the House of Representatives for Lyttelton and shortly afterwards to the Canterbury Provincial Council for the same port. He became part proprietor of the Lyttelton Times in 1856, and was an able contributor to its columns. A pleasant, fluent and forcible speaker, possessed of great energy and perseverance, he soon took a leading position in the House of Representatives. To Mr. Ward New Zealand is mainly indebted for the establishment of the first mail service between England and the Colony via Panama. On the completion of the railway connecting the eastern with the western shores of the United States of America, he advocated the establishment of the San Francisco route in preference to the other line, but unfortunately did not live to see his suggestion carried into practice. He died a few years after entering political life, and thus a promising political career was brought to a close.

-DNZB- Farmer, journalist, businessman, politician

Crosbie Ward is said to have been born on 10 February 1832 at Killinchy, County Down, Ireland, and was baptised there on 11 August 1833. He was the third son of Henry Ward, rector of Killinchy, and his wife, Anne Mahon. He married Margaret (Maggie) Townsend, of Rangiora, on 13 January 1857 at Lyttelton, New Zealand. Their only child, Harriett Louise Frances, married Burnett Silver in 1885.

Ward was educated at Castletown, Isle of Man, and at Trinity College, Dublin. Three of his brothers sailed on the Canterbury Association ship Charlotte Jane in September 1850 to take up farming on Quail Island, in Lyttelton Harbour. When the two elder brothers were drowned in 1851 Ward was sent out to wind up their affairs, arriving on the Stag on 17 May 1852. He and his younger brother, John Hamilton Ward, soon gave up the unprofitable Quail Island farm and bought a small run north of Rangiora. They borrowed a plough from Mt Grey station and W. Stapleforth sowed their first wheat crop, which yielded a bumper 65 bushels to the acre. Ward remained a partner when his brother bought part of the Racecourse Hill run, but took no further part in farming, turning instead to journalism and politics. He was one of the wealthiest young men in the Canterbury settlement.

In 1855 Ward was elected to the Canterbury Provincial Council, representing Akaroa. The following year, with Charles Christopher Bowen, he bought the Lyttelton Times for £5,000. They wrote most of the paper themselves. An employee later recalled that when Ward took control 'he made things hum', organising annual staff picnics and a band. Electorate preference for a resident candidate cost him his Akaroa seat in 1857 and his late bid for a Lyttelton seat was unsuccessful. He was now fully occupied with journalism, for which he was brilliantly talented, with a prose style marked by 'vigorous terseness' and poetic gifts which enabled him to produce skits and parodies on political topics. His 'Song of the Squatters' (20 February 1858), a witty comment on the land regulations debate, was widely quoted, adding to his reputation as Canterbury's best satirical writer. His partner, Bowen, once destroyed a whole issue of the Lyttelton Times for fear that Ward's personal epigrams on candidates for the superintendency would cause offence, or even litigation. Such a penetrating wit was a dangerous gift in such a small community, but it was so free from malice that very few were seriously angry when jokes were made at their expense.

In May 1858 Ward was elected to represent Lyttelton in the General Assembly. A few months later he was also re-elected to the provincial council. In the General Assembly he was described as 'a very glutton for work', yet he found time in 1860 to act in an amateur production of Sheridan's The rivals, at Government House, Auckland. In 1862, in the company of William Fox, Henry Sewell and the Auckland members on their way to the sitting of the General Assembly in Wellington, he was shipwrecked in the steamer White Swan, near Castlepoint.

Ward rose rapidly in the ministry of William Fox, becoming postmaster general and then secretary for Crown lands on 2 August 1861. In 1862 Fox sent him to Hawke's Bay where he settled a dispute over Maori land with exemplary tact. When Alfred Domett became premier, Ward was reappointed as postmaster general after the resignation of Walter Mantell. He travelled to England in 1863 to negotiate contracts for a fast mail service through Panama and a guarantee for a £500,000 loan. He also held talks with the British government on the cost of keeping imperial troops in New Zealand, and wrote a notable letter to Lord Lyttelton on relations between the Maori, the settlers and the British government.

In April 1860 Ward helped raise a Lyttelton company of the Canterbury Rifle Volunteers; this became two companies in September 1860, and Ward was commissioned as captain of No 4 Company on 22 October 1860. This company was disbanded in January 1862, and on 26 October 1864 Ward was commissioned as captain in No 1 Company of the Canterbury Rifle Volunteers. He was also a foundation member of the Lyttelton Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the Canterbury Club and the Provincial Grand Lodge of Canterbury. He edited an anthology, The book of Canterbury rhymes (1866), which included several of his best pieces and gives a vivid glimpse of early Christchurch people and issues. He also edited Punch in Canterbury, writing much of it himself, and delighting in 'the squibs and crackers of political warfare…to dazzle and annoy the enemy.' The 1866 election for the superintendency was greatly enlivened by the political duel waged between Ward and James Edward FitzGerald through their two rival newspapers, the Lyttelton Times and the Press .

As a politician Ward became a popular speaker with a knack for winning over an audience. He declined a post in Weld's ministry in 1864 but was elected for Avon in 1866. The following year he was appointed agent in London for the Canterbury provincial government. In London he immersed himself in work, despite failing health, and soon sold £150,000 of debentures on behalf of the province. Ward died in London on 10 November 1867.