Harrier and cross-country running is the winter counterpart of track and field athletics and is controlled, like the summer sport, by the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association. (The term “harriers” is often understood in this country to imply running on roads rather than across country; but both of these activities are normally included in a winter programme and most runners take part in them with equal facility.) The NZAAA has a Crosscountry Committee (formerly the Harrier Subcommittee) to assist in its deliberations, and at each national cross-country meeting there is a Harrier Conference, which submits a report and recommendations to the NZAAA on matters concerning the administration of the sport.

Only two representatives of the hawklike birds of prey (order Falconiformes) are native to this country, the New Zealand falcon or bush hawk, Falco novaeseelandiae, and the harrier, Circus approximans. The former is found only in New Zealand, is now relatively rare, and has a rather restricted distribution. The harrier is not confined to our shores; other subspecies occur elsewhere and our particular one is also native to Australia and New Guinea.

Within New Zealand harriers are a common sight in almost any stretch of open country at any time of year. Usually their powered flight is slow but sustained and they are much given to soaring on ascending currents of warm air. To accomplish this their broad (or low aspect-ratio) wings are outstretched in a shallow “V” and the birds are then carried aloft. By pursuing a spiral path they remain within the rising thermal and, whilst gliding in this way, scan the ground for prey.

Harriers eat a variety of food and, although they hunt other birds, hares, rabbits, rats, mice, lizards, frogs, fish, and insects, they rely heavily on material already dead (i.e., carrion) and are themselves often killed by being struck by vehicles whilst feeding on the corpses of the various species of wildlife (especially rabbits, hedgehogs, and opossums) that are so regularly run over on the roads. Though persecuted as “vermin” by the uncritical, harriers, like other native predatory animals, play an essential part in natural communities.

Mating occurs in early spring and is accompanied by spectacular courtship aerobatics and shrill yelping cries. Nests are made on the ground amidst such cover as toetoe, flax, raupo, grain crops, and lucerne. The untidy nest bowl is about 3 ft in diameter and is made of surrounding vegetation. The usual clutch is of four white eggs and the weakest young may eventually serve as food for the strongest. Parents, when disturbed, may readily desert eggs or young.

As is the rule among Falconiformes, females are larger than males, though the difference is not a good guide to the sexes in the field. Young, fully fledged harriers are mainly dark brown above and reddish brown below. Plumage becomes progressively paler with age.

by Gordon Roy Williams, B.SC.(HONS.)(SYDNEY), Lecturer in Agricultural Zoology, Lincoln Agricultural College.

(1804–93).

First Bishop of Christchurch.

A new biography of Harper, Henry John Chitty appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Bishop Harper was born on 9 January 1804 at Gosport in Hampshire, a small market town near the great naval base of Portsmouth, where he and his brothers and sisters must have gone in 1815 to see Napoleon Bonaparte walking the decks of HMS Bellerophon. He was the second son of Dr Tristram Harper, a physician, and Mary, daughter of Adam Jellicoe, Naval Paymaster at Portsmouth, through whom he was related to the future Earl Jellicoe of Scapa, Governor-General of New Zealand.

Harper was brought up amid very religious surroundings, morning and evening prayers and scripture readings being part of the household routine. He was educated at Hyde Abbey School in Winchester, where two of his contemporaries were George Arney, later to be Chief Justice of New Zealand, and Henry Sewell, later a leading member of the Canterbury Association and a Minister of the Crown. He won a university scholarship which took him to Queen's College, Oxford, from where he graduated B.A. (1826) and M.A. (1834).

At the invitation of his old headmaster, Harper returned to Hyde Abbey School as a master but shortly afterwards accepted a position as tutor to the two young sons of Sir Charles Coote of Castle Cuffe, Ireland, and when the boys were old enough he accompanied them to Eton College, where he served as a tutor, and where one of his fellow tutors was George Augustus Selwyn, who became a lifelong friend. It was Harper who influenced Selwyn to take holy orders instead of law.

On 12 December 1829 Harper married Emily Woolridge, whom he had met in his teaching days at Hyde Abbey. In 1831, when one of the two chaplaincies of Eton fell vacant, the Provost appointed Harper to the position, although he had not taken orders. The reason for this was that the Oxford Movement, then sweeping England, was making its influence felt at Eton. Harper, himself, was not an active member of the movement, but could scarcely avoid being deeply affected by it.

Harper was ordained by Bishop Murray of Rochester on 17 June 1832. He continued as chaplain at Eton until 1840, when he became Vicar of Stratfield Mortimer in Berkshire, a living the presentation of which belonged to the college authorities. There he remained with his growing family until 1854 when he received a visit from Bishop Selwyn, who had come to broach the possibility of his accepting the newly formed See of Christchurch. Selwyn's visit proved successful, for on his return to New Zealand the citizens of Canterbury settlement petitioned Queen Victoria to appoint Harper Bishop of Christchurch. He was accordingly consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Sumner) on 10 August 1856, and Oxford University signalised the occasion by awarding him an honorary D.D. With his family Harper sailed on the Egmont for Christchurch, arriving at Lyttelton on 23 December 1856, where Selwyn awaited him. There the two bishops, with coats off, helped to trundle handcarts containing family goods up the bridle path over the Port Hills. Harper was formally enthroned as Bishop of Christchurch on Christmas Day, in St. Michael's Church.

In 1857 Harper made his first pastoral journey, travelling on foot, and spending nights at isolated homesteads where he held services. A second pastoral journey took him as far south as Bluff, and he was accompanied by his son Henry (1857–1911), afterwards Archdeacon. Harper tried always to make at least one annual visit throughout his diocese, baptising, confirming, marrying, consecrating churches, and holding services at isolated homesteads and pioneer communities. He laid the foundation stone of Christchurch Cathedral in 1864, and next year paid his first pastoral visit to the West Coast, then in the throes of a goldrush.

He attended the Pan-Anglican Synod at Lambeth in 1867, and urged official recognition of independent status for the Colonial Church, whose constitution he had helped to frame (1857) soon after his arrival. On his return to Christchurch from Lambeth he was welcomed with beflagged streets, a triumphal arch, and a civic reception, so great was his popularity.

On Selwyn's departure in 1868, Harper was elected Primate of New Zealand. As Primate he was always a keen advocate of church schools and religious teaching, but the State grants-in-aid of such schools were terminated, leaving parish schools little option but to close.

In 1878 he attended the second Lambeth Conference. He was then 75, and had consecrated 60 churches in Canterbury alone, adding five more in 1879.

Harper celebrated his golden wedding in December 1879, and was presented with a family portrait by his 22 sons and daughters, and 60 grandchildren. He consecrated the nave of Christchurch Cathedral on 1 November 1881, and in the following nine years consecrated 30 more churches in Canterbury. He resigned his See in August 1889, to take effect from March 1890, and on 1 May 1890 consecrated his successor, Bishop C. Julius. Diocesan authorities allowed him the use of Bishopscourt during the remainder of his life, and Sir John Hall introduced a Bill in Parliament allowing him a pension of £600 per annum to be paid from the bishopric endowment estates. He died at Bishops-court, Christchurch, on 28 December 1893.

Bishop Harper, a man revered not only for his work but also for his personal influence and character, possessed rare humility and modesty. No man has so endeared himself to the people among whom he lived. He came to a region of roadless plains and unbridged rivers, where hardship and exposure were a normal part of the day's work. In such a land he established good government in church affairs, and showed shrewd judgment in dealing with the problems of his infant diocese. He was known and welcomed in the remotest corners of his diocese, by all sorts and conditions of men, for his courtesy and kindness. By his personal conduct he conveyed the sense of a true Christian life.

Most of his large family settled in New Zealand, and played worthy parts in shaping the country of the Bishop's adoption. His descendants, who in 1955 numbered 632, have achieved distinction in many fields.

by Oliver Arthur Gillespie, M.B.E., M.M. (1895–1960), Author.

• Bishop Harper and the Canterbury Settlement, Purchas, H. T. (1909)
• Through Canterbury and Otago with Bishop Harper, Stack, J. W. (1906)
• Letters from New Zealand, Harper, H. W. (1914).

(1865–1955).

Mountaineer, explorer, and naturalist.

A new biography of Harper, Arthur Paul appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Harper was born in Christchurch in 1865, a son of Leonard Harper and grandson of Bishop Harper. He was educated at Christ's College and at Christ Church, Oxford (1884–87). A member of the Inner Temple, he was called to the Bar in 1888, returning to New Zealand in 1889. Towards the end of his Oxford career Harper became interested in alpine climbing and in 1887 and 1888 climbed in the Alps. In 1890 and 1891 he was climbing in New Zealand. Revisiting England, in 1892, he enjoyed his third and most successful Swiss season, which included the first ascent of the Nollenhorn, guideless, with his most constant companion, the Rev. George Broke.

Harper's first New Zealand climbing included expeditions with G. E. Mannering, such as the first crossing of Ball Pass and the first exploration of the Murchison Glacier, and the first ascent of Harper Saddle (1890). In August 1893 he joined the Survey Department as an “explorer” assistant to the celebrated Charles Douglas. Harper's mountaineering knowledge was put to good use during the next three years in the exploration of the Fox, Franz Josef, and Balfour Glaciers and of adjacent West Coast river systems such as the Karangarua and the Landsborough. The association with Douglas, who did not often venture above snowline and characterised climbers as “alpine lunatics”, was of value to both men and resulted in the completion of the exploration of much difficult country. Douglas's failing health entailed Harper doing much of the work alone. Harper learned much of the fascinating bird life of the region. In 1895 he accompanied the English climber E. A. FitzGerald and his famous Swiss guide, Matthias Zurbriggen, from the Copland Valley through to the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers and by Grahams Saddle to the Hermitage. Harper had cause to disagree with many statements in FitzGerald's book (1896), one of the main controversies centring round whether or not FitzGerald's transalpine pass from the Hooker to the Copland was a new discovery. Harper himself published in the same year Pioneer Work in the Alps of New Zealand, describing with gusto the West Coast exploration he had been engaged in for the Survey Department.

His West Coast stay had kindled Harper's interest in mining matters. He was twice in legal practice in mining districts (Thames and Greymouth) for some eight years, but during the rest of his life was engaged in various forms of business, often connected with mining.

With Malcolm Ross, Mannering, and Dixon, Harper in 1891 founded on lines similar to the Alpine Club, London, the New Zealand Alpine Club, with which he was to be closely associated for the rest of his life, serving as president for longer than any other member (1914–32, 1941). The club's first president was his father, Leonard, who had made the first crossing by a European of the Southern Alps to the West Coast by way of Harper Pass from the Hurunui to the Taramakau in 1857. In middle life Harper made few mountain expeditions, though he achieved the first ascent of Davie in the Waimakariri in 1912. But in 1926 he returned to the Southern Alps to introduce his daughter Rosamund (who afterwards made a number of ascents), revisiting the Karangarua and other areas he had first explored. He was active at a quite advanced age, climbing Hector Col in the Matukituki in his middle seventies.

Harper married Marion Florence Campbell in 1899, by whom he had two sons and two daughters. One son was killed in the Second World War.

Resident in Wellington during the last 30 years of his life, Harper became well known as the spokesman of mountaineering and also put to good use his intimate knowledge of bird life and bushcraft. In 1930 he helped to found the Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand. He was for over 20 years a member of the New Zealand Geographic Board, and served also as a member of the National Parks Authority. He was a president of the Forest and Bird Protection Society. In 1932 he was elected an honorary member of the Alpine Club (London), after many years ordinary membership, and was a life member of the New Zealand Alpine Club. In 1946 he published Memories of Mountains and Men, a lively account of his mountaineering and other activities. In 1952 he was awarded the C.B.E. in recognition of his achievements in exploration and mountaineering, as well as his work for the preservation of scenery. He died in Wellington on 30 May 1955.

Harper always repudiated high climbing ambitions but felt justified in claiming recognition as an explorer. He was a strong personality and perhaps his greatest direct contribution to mountaineering lay in the encouragement of others, whether as an attractive and eloquent lecturer or as a club administrator whose natural conservatism was modified by a healthy regard for the adventurous spirit of youth.

by David Oswald William Hall, M.A., Director, Adult Education, University of Otago (retired).

• Pioneer Work in the Alps of New Zealand, Harper, A. P. (1896)
• Memories of Mountains and Men, Harper, A. P. (1946)
• New Zealand Alpine Journal, (1955)
• Alpine Journal, Vol. 60.

(1891–1944).

Soldier, politician, and farmer

A new biography of Hargest, James appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

James Hargest was born at Gore on 4 September 1891, the son of James and Mary Hargest, both of whom had migrated to New Zealand from Brecon, Wales. His father was a labourer at the time of his birth but subsequently acquired his own small farm. James Hargest was educated at the Gore and Mandeville Primary Schools. He began farming in the Mandeville district and entered the Army at an early age as a volunteer in the Territorials. In the First World War he left with the Main Body with the rank of 2nd lieutenant. He served on Gallipoli, taking a leading part in the Suvla Bay battle in August 1915. Wounded there, he was invalided back to New Zealand at the end of 1915 but he proceeded overseas again in 1916. He transferred from the Otago Mounted Rifles to the 1st Battalion of the Otago Regiment (infantry) at Armentieres, being promoted captain just before the first battle of the Somme. For his gallantry there he was awarded the M.C. He received accelerated promotion to major, became 2 i/c of the battalion, and played an important part in the forward preparations for the battle of Messines in June 1917. In March 1918 he was given temporary command of the 1st Otago Battalion while still under 27 years of age. Later he was given the command of the 2nd Otago Battalion with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He led his battalion till the end of the war but was badly wounded on 6 November 1918. For his services he was awarded the D.S.O. and the Legion of Honour, and was twice mentioned in dispatches.

Recognised as one of the most distinguished New Zealand soldiers of the 1914–18 war, he was in the inter-war years given command in turn of the Southland Regiment and of the 3rd New Zealand Brigade. For five years he was aide-de-camp to the Governor-General. After his recovery from war wounds he took up a sheep farm at Rakauhauka in Southland. In 1920 he was elected Crown tenants' representative on the Southland Land Board. He also became a member of the Southland Land Purchase Board, the Assessment Court, and the Southland Education Board, as well as president of the Invercargill R.S.A. He was known as a prominent advocate of the interests and point of view of returned servicemen. Though twice defeated in contests for the Invercargill seat in the New Zealand Parliament, he won it at a by-election in 1931. In the 1935 election he won Awarua, the southernmost electorate, by a substantial majority as a Coalition candidate. He retained this seat in the Nationalist interest in 1938 and held it until his death. In Parliament he participated in debates on defence, on education, and on Southland local interests.

At the outbreak of the Second World War he volunteered for service and was appointed commander of the 5th Infantry Brigade, with the rank of brigadier. His brigade went first to Britain and held the “front line” in the south of England during the Battle of Britain and then saw service in Greece, Crete, and Libya. Brigadier Hargest was captured when his headquarters were overrun by German tanks at Sidi Aziz in Libya in November 1941. He was taken before Field-Marshal Rommel, who told him that his men had fought well. From a castle near Florence, in which senior officers were imprisoned, he and Brigadier Miles made a dramatic escape which is fully described in Hargest's own book, Farewell Campo 12. Back in London, Hargest received the C.B.E. and two bars to his D.S.O. He had earlier received the Greek Military Cross. He joined the 50th Division as a New Zealand observer of the invasion of Europe on D-day in 1944. On 12 August 1944 he was killed by a shell burst in Normandy.

James Hargest was one of New Zealand's best known citizen soldiers. His unflagging energy, great personal courage, and wonderful faculty for rousing the spirits and morale of those around him marked him out as a natural leader of men. Professor A. C. Aitken, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, knew him as a company commander in 1916–17. He has written of Captain Hargest: “There was a man if ever there was one” and “there never could have been a better O.C.” The official historian of the Otago Regiment in the First World War, normally sparing in his praise, recorded: “In the course of his long connection with the Regiment, Lieut.-Colonel Hargest, by his thoroughness, his soldierly ability and bearing, his great sense of military honour, and his extraordinary energy and unexampled dash in action, commanded the highest admiration and confidence of all ranks”. In the Second World War he showed the greatest concern for his men and, especially in the retreat across and evacuation from Crete, spared no effort on their behalf. His deep emotional feeling for his brigade, his gallantry and personal example, won him the admiration and respect of those serving under him.

In 1917 Hargest married Sister Marie H. Wilkie, A.R.R.C., of the New Zealand Army Nursing Service, a theatre sister with a distinguished war record of her own. They had three sons and a daughter – one son was killed on active service in Italy in 1944 and another died as the result of an accident while serving in Malaya a decade later. Hargest's name and interest in education are commemorated in the James Hargest High School, Invercargill.

by Angus Ross, M.C. AND BAR, M.A.(N.Z.), PH.D.(CANTAB.), Professor of History, University of Otago.

• Farewell Campo 12, Hargest, J. (1946)
• Official History of. The Otago Regiment, New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Great War, 1914–18, Byrne, A. E. (1921)
• To Greece, McClymont, W. G. (1959)
• Crete, Davin, D. M. (1953)
• 23 Battalion, Ross, A. (1959).

(c. 1797–1878).

Ngati Kahungunu chief.

A new biography of Te Hapuku appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Very little has been recorded of the early life and lineage of Te Hapuku. He was born about 1797 in Hawke's Bay, probably at Ahuriri, the son of Te Whakahemo, and younger brother of Te Namu. In 1825, during the northern tribes' invasion, he took part in the defence of Te Papake pa, on the Ahuriri sandpit, and was taken prisoner by Iwikau Te Heuheu. On the way to Taupo he escaped and made his way to Mahia where he was given protection by Te Wera. Three years later the Hawke's Bay tribes, which had taken refuge at Mahia, were again attacked. They repelled this and, as a result, were able to return to their former homes. Towards the close of the 1830s Te Hapuku engaged in a minor war with the Hutt Valley tribes; however, hostilities ceased in September 1840 when the Ngati Kahungunu chief visited Wellington. On 23 June 1840 Bunbury called at Hawke's Bay where, at a meeting near the mouth of the Tukituki River, he secured the signatures of Te Hapuku and Waikato to the Treaty of Waitangi. In December 1850 McLean met Te Hapuku and other Hawke's Bay chiefs at Waipukurau. Te Hapuku was well disposed towards McLean's wish to buy land; and, on 4 November 1851, negotiated the sale of the first Waipukurau block for £1,800. In 1853, because of his great mana among his fellow chiefs, the Government appointed him as a magistrate to settle disputes among his countrymen. About 1855 Te Hapuku bought a small schooner in order to ship timber and native produce to Auckland and other coastal ports. He visited Auckland in August to complain to Wynyard that he had not been paid for his land. In the same year Te Hapuku received Wiremu Tamihana Te Waharoa and other leaders of the King movement at Te Hauke, and attended subsequent meetings at Taradale, when the kingship was offered to Te Kani Takarau of the east coast. At this meeting, which Iwikau and Taiaroa attended, Te Hapuku and Karaitiana Takamoana were both contenders for the kingship, but each was too jealous of his own precedence to accept the other as king. In August 1857 Te Hapuku and Tareha, or Te Moananui, had a dispute over the former's right to remove firewood from the latter's bush land at Whakatu. This erupted into open warfare and three engagements took place. Peace was restored when McLean mediated between the two chiefs and Te Hapuku agreed to return to his pa at Te Hauke. This was the last tribal war fought in Hawke's Bay. In August 1859, at Napier, McLean negotiated with Te Hapuku and the Ngati Kahungunu chiefs for a further area of 90,000 acres.

Towards the close of March 1865 Hauhau emissaries entered Hawke's Bay on a recruiting mission. Shortly after this, when news came of the murder of Volkner, Te Hapuku and other chiefs sent messages to the Governor expressing abhorrence of the crime and disavowing sympathy with Hauhau doctrines. In October 1866, Te Hapuku, Karaitiana, Kawepo, and Tareha were present at the Omarunui battle and, afterwards, pursued the enemy across the Mohaka River to the boundaries of the province.

Te Hapuku was among the first of the Hawke's Bay chiefs to realise the benefits which would accrue to the Maori from the presence of European settlers in the district. In 1844, when Colenso arrived to open the first mission in Hawke's Bay, Te Hapuku extended his protection to the venture. Four years later he intervened decisively to prevent Te Rangihaeata from obtaining muskets from the Ngati Kahungunu. In 1851, when Selwyn visited the mission, Te Hapuku placed his canoe at the Bishop's service to bring him from Whakatu.

During his later years Te Hapuku lived quietly at Te Hauke, near Te Aute College. There, in 1878, when Te Hapuku lay dying, Sir George Grey brought along his greatest rival, Te Moananui, in order that the two might make peace. Te Hapuku died on 23 May 1878 at Te Hauke. He was buried with full military honours, the New Zealand Government running a free train from Napier in order to bring Maori and European mourners to his tangi.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Tuwharetoa, Grace, J. Te H. (1959)
• The Treaty of Waitangi, Buick, T. L. (1933)
• The Story of Hawke's Bay, Reed, A. H. (1958)
• Hawke's Bay Herald, 1 Jun 1878.

Hapuku (Polyprion oxygeneios) is known by the Maori name in the north, but groper is preferred in the south. This is a large, heavy, deep-sea fish closely related to the bass. It lurks in caverns and around reefs in deep water and is obtained only by line fishing. Some specimens attain a length of 5 ft and a weight of over 100 lb. Owing to its large size this fish is sold as steaks cut transversely between sections of the vertebra. It is a popular food fish throughout New Zealand.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

The recording and publishing of speeches made in the Parliament of New Zealand has been official since 1867, when a staff of four reporters and an editor was appointed to report the proceedings of both Houses. In the earlier period, the only public record of speeches in Parliament were the rather scrappy – and sometimes unreliable – reports which were printed in various newspapers, and it was largely from these sources that five volumes were compiled to complete the record from the beginning of our Parliament in 1854 up to the year 1867.

In Britain at that time the speeches in both Houses of Parliament were printed and published in London by a private contractor, T. C. Hansard, under the title Hansard's Parliamentary Debates; hence parliamentary debates throughout most of the British Commonwealth are known as “Hansard”.

During the early development of the colony, some members felt that the publication of Hansard was an unnecessary extravagance, and from time to time motions for its abolition were debated in the House. When, however, the question was taken to a division on 6 August 1868, and again on 20 August 1884, the move to discontinue the report was decisively rejected.

Hansard does not contain all the words spoken in the House. Items of formal business are not referred to at all. Only a précis appears of the speeches made in Committee of Supply, and in Committee on Bills the report contains only motions proposed from the Chair. For those debates which are fully recorded, the duty of the reporting staff is to produce a report which, though not strictly verbatim, is substantially the verbatim report, with repetitions and redundancies omitted and with obvious mistakes corrected, but which on the other hand leaves out nothing that adds to the meaning of the speech.

At the present time this task is carried out by an editor and eight reporters, with two editorial assistants and a number of typists. The reporters, who are seated at tables on the floor of the House, make a shorthand record of speeches, taking turns of 10 minutes. A transcript is then dictated, and the typed copy is available within an hour. It is delivered to members for verbal correction, and must be returned within 24 hours for printing. Hansard is printed and published by the Government Printer, booklets containing several days' speeches being available from one to three weeks after the words are spoken.

by Charles Philip Littlejohn, LL.B., Clerk of the Journals and Records, House of Representatives, Wellington.

(1866–1944).

Barrister.

A new biography of Hanlon, Alfred Charles appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Alfred Charles Hanlon was born in Dunedin on 1 August 1866, the third son of a strapping 6-foot sergeant of police who began life in New Zealand in the gold-rush days of Otago in 1862 as a constable under St. John Branigan. His future had been early determined for him by his father, a duty constable in the High Court of Dublin, who, after watching the great advocates of the Irish Bar in action, made a vow that one day a Hanlon would be called to the Bar. More than 20 years later he signed the articles of apprenticeship for his third son in a small legal office on the other side of the world. Young Hanlon received his primary education at Halliwell's and Christian Brothers Schools in Dunedin, and had completed only one year at the Otago Boys' High School when, at 16 years of age, he entered the law office of J. A. D. Adams, founder of the firm of Adams Brothers, which was later to produce two Supreme Court Judges – father and son. After six years with the firm, having completed his law examinations, he was admitted as a barrister and solicitor by Mr Justice Williams in 1888.

As admission meant the loss of his £130 a year clerkship, he commenced practice in 1889 on his own account, with capital nil, his assets a rented room, a deal kitchen table, three cane chairs, a letterpress, and a pile of law books. It was soon realised that Hanlon was an advocate of no mean quality, and with his initial criminal case of the first magnitude – the murder trial of the Winton baby farmer, Minnie Dean – he was marked out as one of the leading criminal advocates of his day. This was in 1895 and he was not yet 30 years of age. His services were at once in keen demand and within a short time he was defending a Chinese charged with murder at Three Kings in the far north, while engaged also on an Admiralty brief at Invercargill in the deep south. He defended more than a score of persons charged with murder, but only one of his clients, the notorious Minnie Dean, suffered the death penalty. His term at the Bar, extending over more than 50 years, was characterised by a continued series of brilliant successes, many of which were without doubt “verdicts for counsel”. The eminence he achieved was contrived in the face of the keenest competition from an exceptionally strong Otago Bar. Six of his contemporaries afterwards became Supreme Court Judges, but the semi-isolation of judicial office was foreign to one of his temperament and he withstood all efforts to lure him on to the Bench. In 1930 he was granted the patent of King's Counsel and for some years he appeared as senior counsel in many cases of importance, both civil and criminal. From 1940 onwards his appearances in Court were very few, and when he died in Dunedin on 6 February 1944, at the age of 77, he had been in retirement for two years.

Hanlon could not be described as a profound lawyer. He relied with great success on a commanding presence, a grasp of facts, a rich and expressive vocabulary, and an extraordinary faculty for brief and effective cross-examination, all of which fitted him for nisi prius work and, indeed, made him one of the great masters both of criminal and of civil advocacy. His scrupulous fairness, perfect courtesy, and proper deference invariably won the confidence of every tribunal before which he appeared, and throughout his life he maintained criminal pleading on its proper plane as the discharge of a high and honourable duty. Upon the record of New Zealand's criminal lawyers his name stands supreme. And only one Commonwealth advocate has been held his peer – Marshall Hall, of the King's Bench. Yet Hall, perhaps in some slight degree a better cross-examiner, could not vie with Hanlon's dynamic personality. Never were the New Zealander's qualities of this sort better illustrated than in his brilliant defence in Rex versus Stott and Bromley, when he left the jury (with the concurrence of the Judge) in foggy doubt as to whether the murderer was either of the two accused or else the chief witness for the Crown. Towards the end of his life Hanlon published Random Recollections – Notes on a Lifetime at the Bar, which is a collection of reminiscences of some of his greatest cases.

In 1894, at Dunedin, Hanlon married Mary Ann Hudson, and they had one son and three daughters.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

• Random Recollections – Notes on a Lifetime at the Bar, Hanlon, A. C. (1939)
• New Zealand Herald, 7 Jan 1953

(1868–1954).

Barrister, politician, educationist.

A new biography of Hanan, Josiah Alfred appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Josiah Alfred Hanan was born at Invercargill on 12 May 1868, the son of James Hanan, an Invercargill storekeeper, and of Sarah, née Clarke. He was educated at the Southland Boys' High School, and qualified in law at the University of Otago in 1891. While still a legal junior he began to take an active interest in public affairs. He was Mayor of Invercargill at 28, and three years later, in 1899, he went to Parliament to represent Invercargill and to commence a political career that was to last 47 years – 26 years in the House of Representatives and 21 years in the Legislative Council. He held the Invercargill seat for a longer period than any of his predecessors or successors, retiring before he was displaced. He held Cabinet rank twice, once for a few brief months in the Mackenzie Ministry of 1912, and again in the wartime Coalition Government of Massey and Ward from 1915 to 1919. When Massey led the Reform Party back on to the Treasury Benches in 1919, Hanan did not find a place in his Cabinet. Though he held the portfolios both of Education and of Justice, Hanan's consuming interest through life was education. He was elected a member of the Senate of the University of New Zealand in 1917, became pro-chancellor in 1927, and in 1935 began a term as chancellor which lasted 10 years. His services to education were recognised by the University of Durham in 1937 when he had conferred upon him the honorary degree of D.C.L. Hanan settled in Dunedin for the last 20 years of his life, and died there on 22 March 1954. In 1901, at Invercargill, Hanan married Susanna Murray by whom he had two sons. The Hon. J. R. Hanan, Attorney-General in the Holyoake Ministry, is a nephew.

Hanan was liberal, both in thought and in practice, to the verge of radicalism, and it was hardly surprising that his policies and methods did not always appeal to the solid conservatism of Massey. Hanan had at all times an unshakable belief in the efficacy of his own version of progress in education, and he always regarded the Invercargill Borstal Institution not only as a model of its kind but also as his own particular creation. He also had claims to be regarded as the father of the Free Place system. He was a debater of some merit, and in Parliament and out of it he was a strenuous combatant and a hard hitter in public. He often found himself opposed in method and temper, even more than in opinion, to his colleagues, but by then politics had become little more than the vehicle for the pursuit of his lifelong enthusiasm – education. He will be remembered as much for his fidelity to that cause as for anything that he personally achieved in its behalf. His work for the cause of education was untiring, and in association with some of the greatest names in university development in the thirties and forties, he deserved well of the community he served.

Hanan's wife, Susanna (1870– ), has also led an active public life. She was born in Invercargill on 1 July 1870, the daughter of John Murray. She was a founder of the New Zealand Free Kindergarten Union, and became its first honorary secretary and treasurer. In 1912 she secured the first Government subsidy for the four kindergarten centres in New Zealand. She was an original member, treasurer, and, later, vice-president of the Plunket Society in Invercargill and Wellington and for a time served on its Dominion Council. She was convenor and first president of the Southland branch of the New Zealand Red Cross Society. During the First World War she was president of the Women's National Reserve (later, the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps). In 1920–21, she was appointed to the Southland High School's Board, the first woman in New Zealand to hold such office.

Susanna Hanan also took an interest in Otago's cultural life and was president of the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra, formed in 1927. She was a forceful platform speaker and took a prominent part in the temperance movement.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

• Otago Daily Times, 23 Mar 1954 (Obit).