Thomas Curson Hansard (6 November 17765 May 1833) was an English pressman, son of the printer Luke Hansard.

Early life and education

Hansard was born in

Clerkenwell Clerkenwell ( ) is an area of central London, England. Clerkenwell was an Civil Parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish from the medieval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The St James's C ...

, currently within the borders of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

but at the time part of

Finsbury division The Finsbury Division was one of four divisions of the Hundred of Ossulstone, in the historic county of Middlesex, England. The area of the Finsbury Division is now the core of modern north London. The other divisions were named Holborn, Kensin ...

Ossulstone Ossulstone is an obsolete subdivision (hundred) covering 26.4% of – and the most metropolitan part – of the historic county of Middlesex, England.British History Online �Hundreds of Middlesex/ref> It surrounded but did not includ ...

, Middlesex.

Career

In 1803, he established a press of his own in

Paternoster Row Paternoster Row is a street in the City of London that was a centre of the London publishing trade, with booksellers operating from the street. Paternoster Row was described as "almost synonymous" with the book trade. It was part of an area call ...

. In the same year,

William Cobbett William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an Agrarianism, agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restr ...

, a newspaperman, began to print the '' Parliamentary Debates''. At first, these were not independent reports, but were taken from newspapers' accounts of parliamentary debate. In 1809, Hansard started to print Cobbett's reports. Together, they also published a pamphlet describing an incident in which German mercenaries had flogged British soldiers for mutiny; as a result Hansard was imprisoned on 9 July 1810 in

King's Bench Prison The King's Bench Prison was a prison in Southwark, south London, England, from the Middle Ages until it closed in 1880. It took its name from the King's Bench court of law in which cases of defamation, bankruptcy and other misdemeanours were he ...

for

libel Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

. In 1812, facing bankruptcy, Cobbett sold the publication to Hansard, who continued to publish it for the rest of his life. In 1829, he added his own name to the parliamentary proceedings, giving it the title ''

Hansard ''Hansard'' is the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official printe ...

'' that it bears to this day. Hansard was the author of ''Typographia, an Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Art of Printing'', published in 1825.

Death

Hansard died in 1833 on New Bridge Street in

Blackfriars, London Blackfriars is in central London, specifically the south-west corner of the City of London. Blackfriars Priory The name first occurs in records of 1317 in many orthographies. Friar evolved from as has, meaning 'brother'. Black refers to the ...

Firm

The original business remained in the hands of his younger brothers, James and Luke Graves Hansard (1777–1851). The firm was prosecuted in 1837 by John Joseph Stockdale for printing by order of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

, in an official report of the inspector of prisons, statements regarded by the plaintiff as

lous. Hansard's sheltered itself on the ground of parliamentary privilege, but it was not until after much litigation that the security of the printers of government reports was guaranteed by statute in 1840. After 1889, the debates were published by the Hansard Publishing Union Limited.

References

External links

A history of Hansard from The Australasian and Pacific Hansard Editors' Association
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hansard, Thomas Curson 1776 births 1833 deaths English printers