Thomas Curson Hansard

[2] Hansard was born in Clerkenwell, currently within the borders of London but at the time part of Finsbury division, Ossulstone, Middlesex.

Together, they also published a pamphlet describing an incident in which German mercenaries had flogged British soldiers for mutiny; as a result Hansard was imprisoned on 9 July 1810 in King's Bench Prison for libel.

Hansard was the author of Typographia, an Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Art of Printing, published in 1825.

The firm was prosecuted in 1837 by John Joseph Stockdale for printing by order of the House of Commons, in an official report of the inspector of prisons, statements regarded by the plaintiff as libellous.

Hansard's sheltered itself on the ground of parliamentary privilege, but it was not until after much litigation that the security of the printers of government reports was guaranteed by statute in 1840.