"HANSARD”

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 5 January 1929, Page 9

"HANSARD”

T'.HE word “Hansard,” in its application to Parliamentary reports, is well-known in New Zealand, as it is in other parts of the British Empire, but very few people know by what, means the term has evolved. It is really the surname of a man who made the system of reporting Parliamentary debates as it is to-day. Luke Hansard died on 28th October, 1828—a little more than a hundred years ago. He was followed by his son, Thomas Curson Hansard, whose association with Parliamentary reporting was also historic. Born in Norwich, Luke Hansard completed his apprenticeship „ with a printer and then set out for London. He quickly found work with John Hughs, printer to the House of Commons, with whose firm he remained for 56 years, first as an employee, then as a partner, and, after 1800, as sole proprietor. Hughs had his printing works in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Here, in addition to his official work, he printed books for the firm of Dodsley. It was the Dodsley connection which brought Luke Hansard his acquaintance with Dr. Johnson Burke, for whom he printed the “Essay Upon the French Revolution,” and Richard Porson, who was pleased to approve the accuracy of the young Norwich compositor when setting' up Greek type. Porson would he astonished if he could return after 100 years to find that Hansard’s was a more familiar name than his own.

In the days when Luke Hansard knocked at John Hughs’s door by the Great Turnstile in the Fields the House of Commons had no liking for newspaper publicity, hut it valued quick and accurate official reports of debates. Pitt, from his place in the House, complimented the young printer upon the production of a secret committee’s report on the French Revolution, the manuscript copy of which had left Pitt’s study only 24 hours before. To-day, a Prime Minister could have had a similar proof within half an hour. Luke Hansard spared no efforts

PARLIAMENT DEBATES

HOW THEY WERE FIRST REPORTED

to justify such praise. His tope alone weighed 117 tons, and it was estimated that the capital employed in his business was not less than £150,000, including £30,000 spent upon new offices in Drury Lane, £47,000 upon type and presses, and £42,000 on account of ‘ ‘ debts due at Christinas. ’ ’ The' business did not escape such troubles as strikes. In 1805, Luke Hansard’s “pressmen” demanded an increase in wages, and 24 of them simultaneously left their work. Luke Hansard went into the highways for workers to take their places “finding unemployed men in the streets and stable yards,” and himself instructing- the “new men by precept and example.” When lie died at the age of 76 years he was still printer to the House of Commons. So regular had been his attendance at work that in 40 years he did not even take a holiday to “see Clapham Common!” After Luke Hansard’s death his sons carried on the business, which was finally, in 1888, taken over by a limited liability company the Hansard Publishing Union this being the company which launched Mr Bottomlev upon his public career. Since 1909 the debates in the House of Commons have been recorded by official shorthand writers, but the name “Hansard” remains with them.

Luke Hansard’s eldest son, Thomas Curson Hansard, had been making history in another direction by printing the Parliamentary debates for public use. At first the reports were taken from the newspapers, but later the Hansards procured full recognition. Thomas Hansard on one occasion suffered imprisonment as printer of Cobbett’s famous military flogging libel in the “Political Registei\” Years later the firm defended a long lawsuit which, finally, established the right of official printers to publish Parliamentary reports without fear of the laws of libel. In 1840 it was settled that the act which indemnifies members of the House of Commons also covered the printers and publishers of Parliamentary reports.