He was educated for the Catholic priesthood but abandoned this idea and migrated to New Zealand, where he worked for several years as a shepherd and shearer in Marlborough, and as a saddler in Wellington.

[2] The married couple moved to Whanganui, where Ward first opened a lending library, and later, a bookshop and stationery business, ‘Book Nook’.

[5] The number of people who came to view the comet through this telescope, gave Ward the idea of forming a small society of interested persons.

[7] After careful research by Ward, the Wanganui Astronomical Society decided in November 1901, to order a 20½-in Calver Reflector[8], from the English Firm, Banks & Co.[9] The full cost of this telescope was to be £450, and a partial payment of £400 had already been despatched to England when a cable arrived to cancel the sale – it had apparently been agreed to without the agreement of Mr Chatwood, the current owner.

[9] The telescope, according to Chatwood, was worth far in excess of the 20½-in Calver Reflector, and although the purchase price grew to £450 after the request for some improvements and additional equipment, the Society had "got itself a bargain".

[12] In 1919, an American solar authority, Professor Albert F. Porta, was quoted in a San Francisco newspaper as predicting terrible storms due to a great sunspot.

[13]Ward responded point by point to Professor Porta’s predictions, finishing with the statement, When Prof. Porta says that "The whole solar system will be strangely out of balance" and that "storms, eruptions, and earthquakes will be tremendous in the strength and scope" on the 17th December next, he is dealing in hot air, and, I can assure your readers that they have no cause for alarm, and need lose no sleep over these direful predictions.

[10] He frequently gave talks to the Wanganui Philosophical Society, of which he held the position of vice president[14] and in September 1926, he delivered the Thomas Cawthron Memorial Lecture on the topic of 'the wonders of the universe'.

[3] Ward built reflecting telescopes of 8 and 12 inch aperture which were often sold to other New Zealand amateur astronomers merely for the cost of the materials used to make them.