David Hand

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The Most Reverend Grand Chief Geoffrey David Hand KBE GCL MA (born Clermont, Queensland, Australia, 11 May 1918, died Port Moresby, 6 April 2006, was the Anglican Archbishop of Papua New Guinea.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Childhood and Education 3 Summary of Career 4 Honours 5 Autobiography 6 Trivia 7 References

[edit] Overview

Archbishop David Hand was one of the very few bishops of the modern world who had walked through equatorial jungle and climbed mountains to find people who had never before had contact with the outside world. When he became a bishop in 1950, he was the youngest bishop in the Anglican communion, aged only thirty-two. He arrived in Papua New Guinea in 1946, spent sixty of his eighty-seven years there, and received honours as varied as a knighthood from H.M. the Queen, the highest rank (Grand Companion) in Papua New Guinea's Order of the Logohu, and the title of Chief of the Orokaiva tribe. (The Orokaiva had killed the Revd Vivian Redlich, the missionary who inspired the young Hand to go out to Papua New Guinea).

Hand retired as Archbishop in 1983 and spent two years as the parish priest of his childhood village of Tatterford in Norfolk, where he was still remembered. He then returned to Papua New Guinea, where he wrote his memoirs (and a newspaper column) and headed the local censorship board. When he died in 2006, he was buried at the Cathedral of the Resurrection, Popondetta. His funeral was delayed, as his coffin was found to be too big for his grave.

[edit] Childhood and Education

Hand was born in 1918 in Queensland, where his English father, the Reverend William Thomas Hand, was the Rector of Clermont. He had two brothers, Peter and Eustace. When he was four, the family returned to England, his father taking up a country parish in Norfolk called Tatterford, and Hand grew up there and was educated at Gresham's School, Holt (where he was an organ scholar) from 1932 to 1937, and then at Oriel College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1941, when he took a degree in history before training for the ministry at Ripon Theological College, Cuddesdon (1941-1942).

[edit] Summary of Career

• Ordained deacon 1942
• Curate at Heckmondwike in Yorkshire 1942-1946
• Priest 1943
• Missioner, Diocese of New Guinea 1946-1950
• Priest-in-charge, Sefoa 1947-1948
• Priest-in-charge, Sangara 1948-1950
• Archdeacon of North New Guinea 1950-1965
• Bishop Coadjutor of New Guinea 1950-1963
• Bishop of New Guinea 1963-1975
• Bishop of Papua New Guinea 1975-1977
• Bishop of Port Moresby 1977-1983
• Archbishop of Papua New Guinea 1977-1983
• Priest-in-charge, East with West Rudham, Houghton next Harpley, Syderstone, Tatterford and Tattersett 1983-1985

[edit] Honours

• Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1975
• Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1984
• Grand Companion of the Order of the Logohu, 2005
• Chief of the Orokaiva tribe in Oro Province

[edit] Autobiography

• Modawa: Papua New Guinea and Me 1946-2002, by Archbishop David Hand (Salpress, Port Moresby, 2002)

[edit] Trivia

• In pursuit of publicity to gain support for his diocese, Archbishop Hand employed a press officer, Susan Young, who smoked cheroots and flew a plane.
• On meeting an Australian journalist in 1972, Hand told him "The secret of life in the tropics is - Johnson's Baby Powder, lots of it." (See obituary in Sydney Morning Herald.)

[edit] References

• Obituary at Papua New Guinea Association
• God's colourful and inspirational soldier - obituary at the Sydney Morning Herald
• Obituary in 'The Guardian' newspaper of London
• Obituary at Church of Papua New Guinea web site