of the Supreme Court. Chapman retired in 1875. Ward declined a permanent appointment on the Supreme Court bench in June 1896, the offer being received just after the death of his wife, and he declined an Acting Supreme Court judgeship in the following year. Private life and second wife Ward was a tall man of strong build. He stood tall and weighed . In the 1880s and 1890s, the Wards had a house in the Christchurch suburb of Burwood; it was said that they "scarcely spoke to each other". Later, they had a house in Park Terrace in the Christchurch Central City. He is rumoured to have had several mistresses and Judge Chapman wrote about him: Ward's first wife Anne Ward died in Christchurch on 31 May 1896 and was buried at Burwood Cemetery. Ward bought a house in the Dunedin suburb of Maori Hill for one of his mistresses, the writer Frances Ellen Talbot, better known under her pseudonym Thorpe Talbot (1851–1923). The house was held in the name of a farmer who Ward knew, and within a month of his wife's death, Ward's name was added to the title. On 6 January 1902, Ward and Talbot were married at that house, and Ward lived in it for the rest of his life. Death Dudley Ward died at his residence in Dunedin on 30 August 1913 aged 86. There were no children from either marriage. His widow sent his body to Christchurch to be buried next to his first wife. The gravestone reads: His second wife was removed from her home after her husband's death and became impoverished. She died in Dunedin 1923. Further reading References 1827 births 1913 deaths District Court of New Zealand judges Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives People educated at Rugby School Members of the Inner Temple Burials at Burwood Cemetery, Christchurch New Zealand MPs for North Island electorates Colony of New Zealand judges 19th-century New Zealand politicians Sheriffs of New Zealand People born at sea