Frederick Henry Handcock

In January 1839 Colonel Light painted a watercolour of their rustic homestead, now in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, titled Fisher & Handcocks Station.

[5] Handcock was subsequently involved in various pioneering pastoralist ventures in rural South Australia, his surname frequently appearing in newspaper reports (often misspelt as Hancock).

In early 1846 these activities eventuated in Handcock, Fisher, and Fred Jones travelling to New South Wales in the ship Templar to purchase a large herd of cattle and horses.

[6] Due to livestock theft by local Aboriginal people, Handcock asked the South Australian Chief Secretary for police protection for his stations on the Murray near the inter-colonial boundary.

Curiously, their joint funeral was then postponed for over a year, eventually taking place on 7 December 1848 at West Terrace Cemetery, the pair being interred in the same vault.

The debonair Handcock, who had never married, had a ‘charming and high-spirited’ character, bringing vibrancy and stimulation to the otherwise dour task of colonisation, especially through such diversions as horse racing.

These attributes rendered him so 'highly respectable' and well liked by his fellow colonists, particularly those connected to the peerage of Ireland, that his unexpected death flung a gloom over Adelaide, prompting glowing public eulogies.