Frederick Henry Handcock

Frederick Henry Handcock (c.1815 – 28 November 1847) was a notable pioneering pastoralist, horse racing enthusiast, and overlander of South Australia.

Born c.1815 at Athlone, Westmeath, Ireland, Fred Handcock was a member of the landowning Handcock family associated with the peerage of Baron Castlemaine, whose ancestral seat was Moydrum Castle. Attracted to the possibilities for pastoralism and land speculation in the nascent colony of South Australia, he arrived there in July 1837 as a young unmarried man in the Africaine from Launceston.

Handcock was the original grantee of Adelaide Town Acre 629 on the southern side of Gilbert Street. Quickly recognised as a leading citizen of the new colony, although never holding public office, in December 1837 Handcock participated in the expedition of Colonel Light that discovered and named the Barossa Range, ergo the Barossa Valley. A few weeks later, on 1 and 2 January 1838, Handcock's brown mare Taglioni raced at the first horse racing event held in South Australia.

In early 1838, in partnership with James Fisher, son of J.H. Fisher, Handcock established one of the earliest sheep runs outside Adelaide, known as Fisher and Handcock's Station, on the Little Para River near its junction with Gould Creek. 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. Hancock Hill near Yatala Vale bears Handcock's name from this time (although misspelt).

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