Daniel Ward 1869 - 23 October, 1942
This Daniel Ward (his father was another, his oldest son who was known as Barney was another and yet another is my brother) was born in Purga in south east Queensland. No-one seems to know anything about this Purga place, except that it is near Ipswich and was an immigrants camp. I took a photo out of a car window a few years ago as we passed a sign saying Purga but saw nothing but a paddock. He was brought to Thornton, along the banks of the Laidley Creek, when he was 10 years old by his Irish immigrant parents, Daniel and Elizabeth (Eliza) Ward. Of his childhood I know nothing. When he was 12 in 1881 his father was one of the local farmers who applied to the government to open a school in Thornton. How he and his siblings were educated, I don't know but i t's probable that they rode horses to Mulgowie, about 10 miles away, where a school had opened in 1877. No Wards appeared on the Thornton school rolls until his oldest daughter, Dolly (Mary Anne) start
