MS 920 04

MS 920 04

Hannen family archive: Papers of James Hannen, Lord Hannen of Burdock

Series

1839-1894

1 portfolio, 2 volumes, 17 files and 1 boxed item

James Hannen (1821-1894) was the eldest son of James Hannen (1788-1857) and Susanna Lee (1799-1879). Educated St Paul’s School in London (1831-1839) and at the University of Heidelberg, 1839-41. He was called to the Bar in 1848, was a circuit and puisne judge and also specialised in mercantile and insurance law. He became British agent in a mixed British-American Commission from 1853-55, going on to become a junior Treasury Counsel in1863. He oversaw the prosecutions of Fenians at Manchester during 1867and 1868. In 1868 he was made a judge of the Queen’s Bench and knighted. In 1872 appointed Judge of Probate and Divorce Court and Privy Councillor (1872-75, rising to President of the new Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court in 1875. He sat in the Court of Appeal from 1881. He headed the judicial tribunal and Special Commission to examine accusations against Charles Stewart Parnell MP and Irish nationalists in 1888. In the same year, he sat on a royal commission into university education in London. In 1891 he was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Hannen of Burdock, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. He was chosen as British agent at Paris in the arbitration between Britain and United States in the dispute over seal fishing in the Bering Sea during 1892 to 1894. After his health broke down in 1893, he retired from judicial duties and died in March 1894.

James married his first cousin Mary Elizabeth Winsland, daughter of Nicholas Winsland and Elizabeth (Betsey) Hannen in 1847. They had 7 children:

James Chitty Hannen (1851-1903)
Mary Lucy (May) Hannen (1852-1934)
Emma S Hannen (1854-1869)
Margaret Ellen Hannen (1855-1919)
Benjamin (Charles) Hannen (1857-1882)
George Winsland Hannen (1858-1882) and
Henry (Harry) Arthur Hannen (1861-1933)

James Hannen's papers cover aspects of his legal career, correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; a diary-memoir, some poetry, obituaries and a few miscellaneous papers