People Australia

William Hambly (c.1763-1835), was a seaman on the Sirius when he arrived at Sydney in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet. He worked as a carpenter at Port Jackson. He had a son William (baptised 1790) with Mary Springham. Both Mary and his son accompanied him to Norfolk Island on the Sirius in March 1790 where Hambly continued to work as a carpenter after the ship was wrecked.

Deciding to becoming a settler, Hambly was discharged from the Sirius in March 1791 and held a lease of 60 acres on Norfolk Island. He and Mary Springham were married in the mass wedding ceremony on the island in November 1791. By mid November 1794 they were recorded with three children. His wife died in 1796; their daughter Mary had died a year earlier.

Hambly left Norfolk Island for Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), with his two remaining children, as a first class settler, on the Porpoise, in December 1807, settling on 65 acres at Gloucester and, in April 1809, 30 acres at Risdon. He married Jane Meech, the widow of William Moulton, on 21 December 1810 at Hobart.

William Hambly was buried on 22 October 1835 at Sorell; his age was given as 73.

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), p 157