His first wife, Anne Ward, was a prominent suffragist and served as the first president of the New Zealand Women's Christian Temperance Union.

His second wife, Frances Ellen "Thorpe" Talbot Ward, was a journalist and travel writer who also supported women's suffrage.

The following year, he successfully stood for election to the lower house of the 2nd New Zealand Parliament representing the Wellington Country electorate from 15 November 1855.

The remainder of his career was appointments as District Judge for a series of individual provinces until, after more than 49 years service, his retirement in March 1906, aged almost 79, on a pension of £800 per annum.

He had been involved in the parliamentary Ward-Chapman enquiry of 1874–75 after he laid certain charges of gross partiality against Justice Chapman of the Supreme Court.

The gravestone reads: After long years of trial and sorrow cometh Charles Dudley Robert Ward to lay his weary heart beside her whom he held dearest of all [6]His second wife was removed from her home after her husband's death and became impoverished.