Hannah is based on the life story of Hannah Stanley, a convict woman who is sentenced to death for Grand Theft before her sentence is commuted to transportation for life to New South Wales. She survives the brutality and filth of English prisons and the long six months in the convict ship Canada before arriving in Sydney Cove in September 1810. After many adventures in the wilderness of the early colony, she raises a large family and takes a rightful place in the society of the new world. She never agaiin saw the shores of England but learnt to love the beauty and the uniqueness of the Australian bush.