HANOVER SQUARE 



3828 



HANSOM 



Hanover Square. London 

 square. It lies between the junc- 

 tion of New Bond Street and Re- 

 gent Street with Oxford Street. 

 Laid out in 1718, and named in 

 honour of George I, its notable 

 residents have included the hook- 



Hanover Square. S. George's Church, 

 built 1713-24, where many fashion - 

 able weddings have been solemnised 



collecting duke of Roxburgh, at 

 Harewood House, built for him by 

 the brothers Adam ; General Lord 

 Cadogan ; the earl of Harewood, 

 whose residence became the home 

 of the Royal Agricultural Society ; 

 Lord High Chancellor Cowper ; 

 Lord Palmerston, father of the 

 prime minister ; Augusta, duchess 

 of Brunswick ; Mrs. Jordan the 

 actress ; Talleyrand ; Lords Anson 

 and Rodney ; and Thomas Camp- 

 bell as guest of the 2nd earl of Minto. 



Largely rebuilt, the square is now 

 occupied by learned societies and 

 business establishments. The 

 Oriental Club, founded in 1824, is 

 at No. 18. The once famous Han- 

 over Rooms and the Hanover 

 Square Club are no more. On the 

 E. side is a statue of William Pitt 

 by Chantrey, set up in 1831 ; and 

 in George Street is the church of 

 S. George's, Hanover Square, built 

 1713-24, which once had almost a 

 monopoly of society weddings. 



Hanriot. French aeroplane, 

 named after its builder. A Hanriot 

 biplane was among the most suc- 

 cessful of the French aeroplanes of 

 the latter period of the Great War. 



Hansard. Official record of 

 parliamentary proceedings. It was 

 named after Luke Hansard (1752- 

 1828), a Norwich compositor, who, 

 as printer to the House of Com- 

 mons, after 1803 continued Cob- 

 bett's Parliamentary History under 

 the title of Hansard's, Parliament- 

 ary Debates. These reports, issued 

 by himself and his family down to 



1889, were at first taken from the 

 newspapers and revised by mem- 

 bers. Following actions for libel by 

 a bookseller named Stockdale, the 

 reports were protected by the 

 privileges of the House of Com- 

 mons in 1840, but not till 1857 did 

 the Treasury subsidise them. 



In 1889 Hansard became a pub- 

 lic company, and when this was 

 wound up the work was done by 

 contract, the reports from 1895 to 

 1908 being supplied by The Times 

 staff. Then the State took control, 

 and the Debates were reported by 

 a government staff, of which Mr., 

 afterwards Sir, James Dods Shaw 

 (d. 1916) was first editor, with an 

 assistant editor, twelve reporters, 

 and five typists. The Speaker, as- 

 sisted by the Debates Publication 

 Committee, is the final authority 

 in the event of complaints as to 

 the reporting. 



Hanseatic League OR HANSA. 

 Association for commercial pur- 

 poses of the commercial towns of 

 N. Germany in the later Middle 

 Ages. When not only every coun- 

 try but every town regarded the 

 presence of foreign traders as a 

 necessary evil and the traders them- 

 selves as persons to whom no facili- 

 ties should be conceded, no one 

 could trade abroad without having 

 at his back an association of which 

 he was a member. Each trading 

 town became a trading Associa- 

 tion. While they retained their 

 mutual jealousies, they gradually 

 realized the advantages of combina- 

 tion for the purposes of trading in 

 foreign lands, exacting concessions, 

 and acting in concert against 

 piracy. Such loose leagues were 

 formed by the towns engaged in 

 the Baltic trade and those engaged 

 in the North Sea trade, there being 

 several of them in the early part 

 of the 13th century. 



The first Hansa or Association 

 which obtained concessions in Eng- 

 land was that of the Merchants of 

 Cologne, who gradually admitted 

 the Hansas of other towns. In 

 1282 the German Hansa, which in- 

 cluded Cologne, Hamburg, and 

 Liibeck, was permanently estab- 

 lished ; this prepared the way 

 for a more general combination 

 into the Hanseatic League of the 

 North German commercial towns. 

 The league became so powerful 

 that it was able to dominate the 

 foreign trade of Norway, Sweden. 

 Denmark, and even to some ex- 

 tent of London. The English com- 

 mercial history of the 14th and 

 15th centuries is largely that of the 

 efforts of the English Associations, 

 the Merchants of the Staple, and 

 the Merchant Adventurers, to 

 restrict the privileges of the Hansa 

 in England and to extort corre- 



spending privileges for themselves 

 from the Hanseatic towns in Ger- 

 many, and as rivals of the Hansa in 

 other countries. Wisby, on Goth- 

 land, was one of its great centres. 



The League even acquired a politi- 

 cal domination in the Baltic ; but at 

 .the end of the 15th century its 

 power was waning ; by the middle 

 of the 16th century it had lost all 

 its privileges in England ; geo 

 graphical discoveries and mari- 

 time developments had provided 

 new pathways for commerce, and 

 by the opening of the 17th century 

 the league had ceased to be of 

 great account. Its doom was finally 

 sealed by the disintegration of Ger- 

 many wrought by the Thirty 

 Years' War. See Bremen ; Ger- 

 many ; Guild ; Hamburg ; Liibeck. 

 Hansen, PETER ANDREAS (1795- 

 1874). Danish astronomer. Born 

 in Slesvig, Dec. 8, 1795, he became 

 director of the Seeberg observatory 

 near Gotha. Having turned his 

 attention to lunar observation, his 

 Tables de la Lune, 1857, were pub- 

 lished by the British Government, 

 who awarded the author 1,000. 

 Foreign member of the Royal 

 Society, and holder of the Copley 

 medal, 1850 in 1842 and 1860 he 

 received the gold medal of the 

 Royal Astronomical Society. He 

 died at Gotha, March 28, 1874. 

 One of the most profound mathe- 

 matical astronomers, his work has 

 long formed the basis of many of 

 the calculations employed in the 

 preparations of The Nautical 

 Almanac and similar works. 



Hansi. Subdivision and town 

 of the Punjab, India, in Hissar 

 District. Area, 803 sq. m. Hansi 

 town, one of the oldest places in N. 

 India, contains cotton ginning and 

 pressing factories. Pop. subdivision, 

 167,963, | Hindus, \ Mahomedans; 

 town, 14,576, equally Hindus and 

 Mahomedans. 



Hansom. Name given to a cab, 

 an improved form of the cabriolet. 

 It was invented by J. A. Hansom, 

 a Yorkshire 

 architect, who 

 in 1834 regis- 

 t e r e d his 

 " patent, safe- 

 ty cab," which 

 was eventually 

 named after 

 him. Its chief 

 feature was an 

 J. A. Hansom, arrangement 

 Inventor ot the cab for pr | venting 



its tipping forward if the horse fell, 

 or backward, if over-balanced. It 

 had two enormous wheels,with sunk 

 axle-trees, and a seat for the driver 

 at the side. Subsequent improve- 

 ments reduced the size of the 

 wheels, fixed the dickey at the 

 back, and provided a pair of double 



