A PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 28 January 1933, Page 14

A PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY

" J AM not Mrs Trautmann. I am not Mrs Hanson. Who am I?” An English-born woman who had successively assumed Gorman. Norwegian and 1 American nationality uttered this exclamation when she was charged at Sheffield with failing to notify her change of address as an alien. The woman, Ida Hanson, aged 40, was stated to have married a Herman in 112, thereby becoming a German Subject. During the war her husband was interned in England, and she went to Germany. In 1918 she was divorced in Berlin, and returned to England. In .1920 the woman married a Norwegian, and isho and l her husband went to America. The husband there became a naturalised American. The woman was divorced in America, and returned 1 to England in 1924. According to English law she was now an American subject; American law said she was now a British subject. The Bench only had to deal with the English law on the point. After the woman’s retu'rn' from America she lived in London foi a- time,

Woman Cited for Offence as Alien

and went to Sheffield. She had nor j notified the registration authorities of I her departure from London or of her • residence' in Sheffield.

A police officer stated she had told him that 'her father had been interested in some mines at Penzance. As a. child she lived at 'Chiswick. She married .a German named Trautmann, and subsequently a Norwegian seafaring man, and was divorced from both of them.

Mrs Hanson told the Bench that she had done nothing detrimental to England. She was very fond of that country, and that was the reason why she kept on running back to it. "I am •not Mrs Trautmann. I am not Mrs Hanson. Who am I?” she asked. "I have wasted ten years of my life already over this.”

The police stated that Hanson was prosecuted for failing to register in 1924. She was now lined 10s for failure to register. On a charge of improper conduct she was 'sentenced to one month’s .imprisonment.