Rebecca Hand

Biographical information provided by Rae Collins for the He Tohu exhibition:

Rebecca Hand (nee Prior) was born in South Minns, Middlesex, England. She married a publisher’s clerk named William Alfred Putnam on August 1861 in Trinity Church, Marylebone and had two daughters together, Clara Phoebe and Emma Rebecca. After Alfred developed consumption they decided to emigrate to a better climate. Elwin Brodie Dickson, a relative already living in New Zealand, found work for Alfred in the Native Land Court. They left Gravesend in May 1865 on the John Temperley but Alfred died on the voyage. When Rebecca and her girls arrived in August they were taken in by the Dicksons.

Within six months she married again to George Hand, an ex-sailor and widower with three children. She took Emma with her but left Clara with the Dicksons. George Hand was one of the first lighthouse keepers on Tiritirimatangi and later had the same job at Pencarrow and Cape Foulwind. After eleven years of marriage he died in Westport, leaving Rebecca with five more little children.

Rebecca lived with family in Wellington and Greymouth until she died in 1933, having never seen Clara again.