Hansard

Official report of the proceedings of the British Houses of Parliament, named after Luke Hansard (1752-1828), printer of the House of Commons Journal from 1774. It is published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. The name Hansard was officially adopted in 1943. Hansard can now be consulted on the Internet.

The first official reports were published from 1803 by the political journalist William Cobbett who, during his imprisonment 1810-12, sold the business to his printer Thomas Curson Hansard, son of Luke Hansard. The publication of the debates remained in the hands of the family until 1889.

The first printer of this name, Luke Hansard, was born in Norwich. He went to London and entered the office of John Hughes, printer to the House of Commons, as compositor. In 1774 he became a partner and acting-manager, and began to print the journals of the House of Commons. Subsequently his two sons entered the business, and after their father's death they and their sons continued as printers to the House of Commons. Luke Hansard was buried in the parish church of St Giles-in-the-Fields.

Thomas Curson Hansard, who had opened his own printing office in 1803, printed Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates (founded in 1804) and became its owner in 1811, renaming it Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. He died in 1833, and was succeeded by his son, Thomas Curson Hansard the second. The name ‘Hansard’ disappeared from the Parliamentary Debates in 1889, when Thomas Curson Hansard sold his interest to the Hansard Publishing Union (Bottomley).

The Official Report of Parliamentary Debates reverted to its old name of Hansard in 1943. This was a result of the recommendation of the House of Commons' Select Committee on Publications and Debates Reports. In a special report it stated that ‘the word Hansard should appear upon the title page of the official parliamentary debates’. But irrespective of this reversion, the Debates or Official Report had for years been known simply as ‘Hansard’, the name being looked upon as a synonym for reports of parliamentary debates, not only at Westminster but in several Commonwealth countries. It was laid down by the select committee that Hansard is not a government publication; it is controlled by a sessional committee in consultation with the Speaker and Clerk of the House.