John Christopher Simon HANDT

HANDT, JOHN CHRISTOPHER SIMON (b. Prussia, 1794; d. ?). One of the first two Anglican missionaries to the Aborigines.

Handt, trained in Germany, was a missionary in Liberia prior to coming to Australia. He went to the Aboriginal community at Wellington NSW in 1832 with William Watson (q.v.). In 1836 he was transferred to Moreton Bay, to work among Aborigines there and later in the penal settlement as a chaplain.

The two CMS missions to Aborigines were closed in 1841. While at Wellington, Handt worked with Watson on the local Aboriginal language, producing a dictionary and translation of St Matthew's Gospel and other portions of Scripture.

CMS Register of Missionaries and Native Clergy 18041904 (CMS London, 1904) 30; E Stock, History of the CMS (London, 1899) vol 1; K Cole, A History of the CMS of Australia (Melbourne, 1971); S M Johnstone, A History of CMS in Australia and Tasmania (Sydney, 1925)

COLIN REED