Background
Luke Hansard was the son of a Norwich manufacturer.
Luke Hansard was the son of a Norwich manufacturer.
Luke Hansard was educated at Kirton Grammar School in Kirton, Lincolnshire, and was apprenticed to Stephen White, a Norwich printer.
As soon as his apprenticeship had expired Hansard started for London with only a guinea in his pocket, and became a compositor in the office of John Hughs (1703-1771), printer to the British House of Commons. In 1774 he was made a partner, and undertook almost the entire conduct of the business, which in 1800 came completely into his hands. Parliamentary records
He printed the Journals of the House of Commons from 1774 till his death.
The promptitude and accuracy with which Hansard printed parliamentary papers were often of the greatest service to government—notably on one occasion when the proof-sheets of the report of the Secret Committee on the French Revolution were submitted to Pitt twenty-four hours after the draft had left his hands.
On the union with Ireland in 1801, the increase of parliamentary printing compelled Hansard to give up all private printing except when parliament was not sitting. His company became the Hansard Publishing Union.
Luke Hansard The Auto-biography of Luke Hansard, written in 1817. Edited.. by Robin Myers.
Wakefield: Fleece Press, 1991
Evelyn Mansfield King, with J. C. Trewin, Printer to the House, London, 1952.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, educated (1911). "article name needed". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed).
Cambridge University Press.