Hansford Ward

[2] In April 1840, Ward was among the party that accompanied Governor Gawler to explore and chart the Spencer Gulf coast of Eyre Peninsula from Port Lincoln to Franklin Harbor.

She was the eldest daughter of J. Richard Best of Hindmarsh, who died on 1 January 1850 from head injuries sustained at the Adelaide racetrack after a viewing platform railing gave way.

[8] Punch, 150 tons, was a fine little brig owned by Adelaide businessmen Thomas Allen, George Henry Fox, Barnett, and others.

[10] He rigged a series of empty water barrels under her hull and waited for the next "king tide", which occurred on 20 December 1853, when she was without incident towed out to sea and around to Port Adelaide.

Waitemata, facetiously dubbed "Weighty Matter", gained some notoriety as the vessel in which "Bully" Hayes escaped from Adelaide early in 1858.

Elder, Stirling, & Co. then joined with Darwent, Stilling, & Co., and commissioned Ward to travel to Glasgow to either purchase or have built a coasting steamer.

In the event he had built the iron screw steamer Lubra (167 tons), which he brought back under sail as a three-masted schooner, arriving in Adelaide in June 1861.

In 1862 the screw steamer Coorong was built; the company in 1864 purchased Royal Shepherd (244 tons), of which Ward was skipper from 1865 to 1872, and Kangaroo in July 1867.

On one such voyage in 1879, on returning from Nouméa by way of Newcastle with a load of copper ore, she was dismasted and lay in a disabled and distressed condition until rescued by the Ellamang 20 miles (32 km) off Cape Moreton.

[13] John Ward skippered her for nine years, then in July 1886 after loading a cargo of railway sleepers at Quindalup, Western Australia a storm came up and blew her onto the shore, where she was wrecked.

[14] John Ward returned to Adelaide as chief officer of Collingrove, and shortly after was appointed captain of the Persian Empire plying between Melbourne and San Francisco.