From the number of urns, coins and other antiquities found near Hanau it would appear that it owes its origin to a Roman settlement. It received municipal rights in 1393, and in 1528 it was fortified by Count Philip III. who rebuilt the castle. At the end of the 16th century its prosperity received considerable impulse from the accession of the Walloons and Netherlanders. During the Thirty Years’ War it was in 1631 taken by the Swedes, and in 1636 it was besieged by the imperial troops, but was relieved on the 13th of June by Landgrave William V. of Hesse-Cassel, on account of which the day is still commemorated by the inhabitants. Napoleon on his retreat from Leipzig defeated the Germans under Marshal Wrede at Hanau, on the 30th of October 1813; and on the following day the allies vacated the town, when it was entered by the French. Early in the 15th century Hanau became the capital of a principality of the Empire, which on the death of Count Reinhard in 1451 was partitioned between the Hanau-Münzenberg and Hanau-Lichtenberg lines, but was reunited in 1642 when the elder line became extinct. The younger line received princely rank in 1696, but as it became extinct in 1736 Hanau-Münzenberg was joined to Hesse-Cassel and Hanau-Lichtenberg to Hesse-Darmstadt. In 1785 the whole province was united to Hesse-Cassel, and in 1803 it became an independent principality. In 1815 it again came into the possession of Hesse-Cassel, and in 1866 it was joined to Prussia.
See R. Wille, Hanau im dreissigjährigen Krieg (Hanau, 1886); and Junghaus, Geschichte der Stadt und des Kreises Hanau (1887).
HANBURY WILLIAMS, SIR CHARLES (1708-1759), English diplomatist and author, was a son of Major John Hanbury (1664-1734), of Pontypool, Monmouthshire, and a scion of an ancient Worcestershire family. His great-great-great-grand-father, Capel Hanbury, bought property at Pontypool and began the family iron-works there in 1565. His father John Hanbury was a wealthy iron-master and member of parliament, who inherited another fortune from his friend Charles Williams of Caerleon, his son’s godfather, with which he bought the Coldbrook estate, Monmouthshire. Charles accordingly took the name of Williams in 1729. He went to Eton, and there made friends with Henry Fielding, the novelist, and, after marrying in 1732 the heiress of Earl Coningsby, was elected M.P. for Monmouthshire (1734-1747) and subsequently for Leominster (1754-1759). He became known as one of the prominent gallants and wits about town, and following Pope he wrote a great deal of satirical light verse, including Isabella, or the Morning (1740), satires on Ruth Darlington and Pulleney (1741-1742), The Country Girl (1742), Lessons for the Day (1742), Letter to Mr Dodsley (1743), &c. A collection of his poems was published in 1763 and of his Works in 1822. In 1746 he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Dresden, which led to further employment in this capacity; and through Henry Fox’s influence he was sent as envoy to Berlin (1750), Dresden (1751), Vienna (1753), Dresden (1754) and St Petersburg (1755-1757); in the latter case he was the instrument for a plan for the alliance between England, Russia and Austria, which finally broke down, to his embarrassment. He returned to England, and committed suicide on the 2nd of November 1759, being buried in Westminster Abbey. He had two daughters, the elder of whom married William Capel, 4th earl of Essex, and was the mother of the 5th earl. The Coldbrook estates went to Charles’s brother, George Hanbury-Williams, to whose heirs it descended.
See William Coxe’s Historical Tour in Monmouthshire (1801), and T. Seccombe’s article in the Dict. Nat. Biog. with bibliography.
HANCOCK, JOHN (1737-1793), American Revolutionary statesman, was born in that part of Braintree, Massachusetts, now known as Quincy, on the 23rd of January 1737. After graduating from Harvard in 1754, he entered the mercantile house of his uncle, Thomas Hancock of Boston, who had adopted him, and on whose death, in 1764, he fell heir to a large fortune and a prosperous business. In 1765 he became a selectman of Boston, and from 1766 to 1772 was a member of the Massachusetts general court. An event which is thought to have greatly influenced Hancock’s subsequent career was the seizure of the sloop “Liberty” in 1768 by the customs officers for discharging, without paying the duties, a cargo of Madeira wine consigned to Hancock. Many suits were thereupon entered against Hancock, which, if successful, would have caused the confiscation of his estate, but which undoubtedly enhanced his popularity with the Whig element and increased his resentment against the British government. He was a member of the committee appointed in a Boston town meeting immediately after the “Boston Massacre” in 1770 to demand the removal of British troops from the town. In 1774 and 1775 he was president of the first and second Provincial Congresses respectively, and he shared with Samuel Adams the leadership of the Massachusetts Whigs in all the irregular measures preceding the War of American Independence. The famous expedition sent by General Thomas Gage of Massachusetts to Lexington and Concord on the 18th-19th of April 1775 had for its object, besides the destruction of materials of war at Concord, the capture of Hancock and Adams, who were temporarily staying at Lexington, and these two leaders were expressly excepted in the proclamation of pardon issued on the 12th of June by Gage, their offences, it was said, being “of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that of condign punishment.” Hancock was a member of the Continental Congress from 1775 to 1780, was president of it from May 1775 to October 1777, being the first to sign the Declaration of Independence, and was a member of the Confederation Congress in 1785-1786. In 1778 he commanded, as major-general of militia, the Massachusetts troops who participated in the Rhode Island expedition. He was a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1779-1780, became the first governor of the state, and served from 1780 to 1785 and again from 1787 until his death. Although at first unfriendly to the Federal Constitution as drafted by the convention at Philadelphia, he was finally won over to its support, and in 1788 he presided over the Massachusetts convention which ratified the instrument. Hancock was not by nature a leader, but he wielded great influence on account of his wealth and social position, and was liberal, public-spirited, and, as his repeated election—the elections were annual—to the governorship attests, exceedingly popular. He died at Quincy, Mass., on the 8th of October 1793.
See Abram E. Brown, John Hancock, His Book (Boston, 1898), a work consisting largely of extracts from Hancock’s letters.
HANCOCK, WINFIELD SCOTT (1824-1886), American general, was born on the 14th of February 1824, in Montgomery county, Pa. He graduated in 1844 at the United States Military Academy, where his career was creditable but not distinguished. On the 1st of July 1844 he was breveted, and on the 18th of June 1846 commissioned second lieutenant. He took part in the later movements under Winfield Scott against the city of Mexico, and was breveted first lieutenant for “gallant and meritorious conduct.” After the Mexican war he served in the West, in Florida and elsewhere; was married in 1850 to Miss Almira Russell of St Louis; became first lieutenant in 1853, and assistant-quartermaster with the rank of captain in 1855. The outbreak of the Civil War found him in California. At his own request he was ordered east, and on the 23rd of September 1861 was made brigadier-general of volunteers and assigned to command a brigade in the Army of the Potomac. He took part in the Peninsula campaign, and the handling of his troops in the engagement at Williamsburg on the 5th of May 1862, was so brilliant that McClellan reported “Hancock was superb,” an epithet always afterwards applied to him. At the battle of Antietam he was placed in command of the first division of the II. corps, and in November he was made major-general of volunteers, and about the same time was promoted major in the regular army. In the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg (q.v.), Hancock’s division was on the right among the troops that were ordered to storm Marye’s Heights. Out of the 5006 men in his division 2013 fell. At Chancellorsville his division received both on the 2nd and the 3rd of May the brunt of the attack of Lee’s main army. Soon after the battle he was appointed commander of the II. corps.