Obituary: The Hon. Henry Hannen

( 303 ) THE HON. HENRY A. HANNEN. ON Thursday, June 8th, 1933, died the Hon. H. A. Hannen, one of our trustees and long a member of our CouncU. By his death we lose not only a wise and helpful friend but also a most Idndly member of the Society to whom we instinctively turned whenever a difficult point arose in its management, as happened quite recently when the question of the retention of the Society's rooms in the Maidstone Museum came to the front. Thanks to him and our President, Lord Conway, this very urgent and difficult matter was happUy settled. Of his many activities the pubhc press has given a fuU account. A traveUer " surveying mankind from China to Peru " he not only noted the geography but became an authority on the ethnology of the regions he covered. At home he was always fully occupied : J.P., D.L. and Chairman of the West Kent Quarter Sessions, Prison Visitor and member of the Prison Committee, Chairman of Mailing Petty Sessions for over twenty years, no doubt his legal training as a barrister helping his natural aptitude for magisterial work. He was the son of that remarkable judge, Lord Hannen, President of the Probate Divorce and Admiralty division of the High Court of Justice, of whom a brother judge said, " there had not been a greater Judge in his hfetime of 73 years." Mr. Hannen was a keen archaeologist, speciahzing in Kent books and maps. He had a large library of over 15,000 volumes, some 700 of which related to this County. One very interesting and unique item is PhiUipot's MS. copy of the first issue of Lambarde's Perambulation with a MS. map, one of the earhest, if not quite the earhest, of the maps of Kent. Another is the first issue of Symondson's large map, 1596, of which he had a number of photostats 304 OBITUARY. made and distributed to his friends. But I would here testify to the extraordinary charm of our friend. The quiet voice, the courteous interest taken in what you were saying, the apt remark on the subject spoken about, and the direct point taken in any discussion, especiaUy U the subject was a difficult or involved one : aU this made him an outstanding personahty and one to whom aU were wilUng to hsten. To me, personaUy, now weU on in years, his loss is great. We were frequent correspondents on Kent subjects, especiaUy books and maps, and I miss his acute and accurate mind in aU that relates to Kentish Bibliography and Cartography, no less than that kindly friendship which is indescribable in words, but is felt in spnit. F. WILLIAM COOK.