People Australia

Abraham Hand (c.1756-1834) was a marine in the 53rd (Portsmouth) Company when he arrived at Sydney aboard the Scarborough in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet. He served in Captain James Meredith's Company at Port Jackson.

Deciding to settle, Hand was granted 60 acres at Proctor's Run, Phillipsburg, on Norfolk Island in late 1791. He was appointed constable for the Great Cascade Stream area in September 1793. By mid June 1794 he was living with Sarah Smith; they had no children. He bought a 60 acre lease in July 1797 and another in December 1800 on the southside of the Creswell Bay stream. In 1805 he was a first class settler with neither wife nor children; 33 of his acres were cultivated and he had 42 sows.

Hand left Norfolk Island for Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) on the City of Edinburgh in September 1808, settling on 100 acres at New Town; he also held 105 acres at New Norfolk in 1813. Jane Wilmot was listed as his wife in the 1809 Muster.

Abraham Hand was buried at New Norfolk on 29 October 1834; his age was given as 78 and his occupation as farmer.

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), p 158