Personal details
Full Name:
- Joseph George Ward
Lifetime:
- 26 Apr 1856–8 Jul 1930
Prime Minister:
6 Aug 1906–12 Mar 1912; 10 Dec 1928–28 May 1930
Age on becoming PM:
50
Electorate:
Awarua (1906-12); Invercargill (1928-30)
Political Party:
Liberal; United

Sir Joseph Ward, New Zealand’s political Lazarus, led governments nearly a quarter of a century apart.
Read more...Events In History
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6 November 1908Last spike completes North Island main trunk railway
Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward ceremonially opened the North Island main trunk railway line by driving home a final polished silver spike at Manganuioteao, between National Park and Ohākune. Read more...
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26 September 1907Joseph Ward proclaims dominion status
Prime Minister Ward read the proclamation to a smallish crowd from the steps of the General Assembly Library in Wellington. This first Dominion Day was a public holiday. Read more...
Articles
Dominion status
On 26 September 1907 the colony of New Zealand ceased to exist. It became, instead, a dominion within the British Empire.
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Page 2 – Becoming a dominion
New Zealand had its own reasons for wanting to become a dominion. Premier Sir Joseph Ward hoped the term ‘dominion’ would remind the world that New Zealand was not
Housing the Prime Minister
Almost 150 years after the government purchased the first official premier's residence on Tinakori Road, Wellington, the address of Premier House remains the same. But in the intervening years the building has been extended, renamed, abandoned and refurbished.
- Page 2 - The first premier houseOur first premiers had to find their own digs. That changed in 1865, when the government bought the premier a simple 22-year-old wooden cottage in Thorndon’s Tinakori
The 1920s
The 1920s was the decade that modern New Zealand came of age. Despite political and economic uncertainty, the country shrugged off the gloom of war to embrace the Jazz Age - an era of speed, power and glamour. Explore an overview of the decade and a year-by-year breakdown of key events.
- Page 11 - 1928 - key eventsA selection of key New Zealand events from
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Main image: Sir Joseph Ward listening to wireless report
Sir Joseph Ward listening to a wireless report during a New Zealand military exercise in France in 1918