William Walford, c. 1873

William Barnard Walford (1821–1896), businessman and landowner, was born in Hobart, the son of a publican and victualler and the grandson of a Vienna-born ex-convict who had been transported for seven years in 1791 for stealing cloth. William Barnard Walford appears to have moved to Sydney in the early 1840s, marrying Elizabeth Tovey Symonds (1824–1912) there in 1842. Elizabeth, also born in Hobart, was the daughter of an ex-convict named John Tovey Symonds, who was transported to New South Wales for burglary in 1815. Symonds spent ten years in Van Diemen’s Land, marrying Elizabeth’s mother, Mary Walford, in Hobart in 1819; Symonds returned to Sydney in 1826 and established a pub called the Waterloo Tavern, in Kent Street. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, William Barnard Walford developed a number of business interests, investing in real estate, mining and other ventures and later serving as a director of companies such as the Australian Gaslight Co. William and Elizabeth Walford lived at Waratah in Rushcutters Bay and had eleven children, of whom only five survived to adulthood.

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Leslie Walford AM 2013