After 32 years in the colony, William Hancy met his death unexpectedly when riding home at a furious pace from Parramatta in the company of two other men.  Galloping at full speed, his horse hit a cow lying in the middle of Windsor Road and he was precipitated onto his head, killing him instantly.

Brothers William and Michael Hancy arrived in the colony as free settlers on the ship Minorca on 14 December 1801.  Born in 1764 in Cork, Ireland, William married Sarah Macdonald on 9 November 1794 in St Anne’s, Soho, London.  Sarah was a native of Barrow, Shropshire where she was born in  1765.  Definitely three and possibly four children were born to the couple in England before immigrating to the colony: Catherine born 1795, Simeon born 1797, Ann born 1798 and Thomas born 1801.  As only three children are listed on the ship from England, Thomas may well have been born on the journey.

Another five children were born in the colony:  Frederick born 1803, Margaret born 1805, Elizabeth

Born 1807, Sophia born 1808 and Charlotte born 1810, all at Parramatta.

As a free settler, William received a grant of 100 acres in Baulkham Hills on March 3 1802 and an additional 60 acres was granted after his death on 6 December 1830, almost certainly to help the now fatherless family.  Quite why he uprooted his family from England to come to the colony when the majority of arrivals were convicts, is unknown.  The promise of land grants to free settlers may have been an inducement.  Brother Michael Hancy, by the 1828 census, was living in Sydney where he was working as a carpenter, but William remained on the land and was very active in the community.  Today’s Showground Road, running from Castle Hill shopping centre right through to Windsor Road would have cut through William and Michael’s land grants.

William signed the Hawkesbury Settlers address to Governor Bligh in 1806, complaining about the Rum Corps and the infringements of their rights by John Macarthur.  His signature is also on the welcome to Lieut. Governor Paterson, praying for a return to law and order.  It is possible to deduce the place he held in local society as a yeoman farmer, when he was listed as one of only 47 men qualified to serve as a juror at the General Quarter Session in Parramatta in 1826.

His death caused a minor sensation when a local Parramattan wrote a letter which was published in the Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser on 11th December 1830.

FATAL ACCIDENT                     

To the Editor of the Sydney Gazette

SIR,  A fatal accident occurred in our little neighbourhood yesterday, to an old respectable emigrant settler, Mr William Hancy, who, when returning home from Parramatta, in company with two other persons, was thrown from his horse and killed upon the spot. – It appears that the deceased and the two other persons were all riding at a smart pace , within a few rods of Wood’s house, when the deceased’s horse came in contact with a cow lying in the middle of the road, and precipitated the rider with such violence (having fallen upon his head) as to cause immediate death.  Information of the accident was immediately sent to Parramatta, but the Coroner for Parramatta and its Districts was absent, at Sydney; in consequence of which the corpse was left exposed, on the middle of the high road, from 10 o’ clock yesterday morning, when the accident occurred, till about 6 o’clock in the afternoon, when the body was moved to the side of the road.

            Now, Mr Editor, as a friend to humanity, I make these facts known to the public, that not only was the corpse of a respectable emigrant settler, and father of a large family, exposed to the vulgar gaze, and to the lamentation of his afflicted wife and family, but the body is still lying on the side of the road, and it is now past 4 o’clock in the afternoon of the second say since the accident happened, and no jury is yet convened.  Had the weather been as hot as it usually is at this time of the year, it is easy to imagine what a state the corpse must have been in.

I am, Mr Editor,

Your obedient servant                         A FRIEND TO HUMANITY

Baulkham Hills, December 7 1830