Thomas Hare (28 March 1806 in England – 6 May 1891) was a British lawyer and supporter ofelectoral reform. He is credited with inventing thesingle transferable vote system ofproportional representation which he was a proponent and defender, now used in national elections inIreland and Malta, in Australian Senate and state elections, and in city elections in Northern Ireland, the U.S., New Zealand and Scotland.[1][2][3][4]
He was born on 28 March 1806, the illegitimate son of Anne Hare ofLeigh, Dorset.[5] (Alumni Cantabrigienses considers that a 19th-century identification was incorrect. It identified Anne Hare's son with the Thomas Hare who matriculated atQueens' College, Cambridge in 1823, graduating B.A. in 1827, and M.A. in 1846.[6])
Brought up on a Dorset farm, Hare had a scanty education. He went to London and found work as a solicitor's clerk.[7] On 14 November 1828 he was admitted a student of theInner Temple, and he wascalled to the bar on 22 November 1833. He practiced law in thechancery courts.[8] In 1853 Hare became an Inspector of Charities for theCharity Commission.[9]
A Treatise on Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal (1859)
The Election of Representatives Parliamentary and Municipal: a Treatise (1865)
Hare's major workThe Machinery of Representation appeared in 1857 (two editions)[14] and editions of hisTreatise on the Election of Representatives: Parliamentary and Municipal appeared between 1859 and 1873.[15] John Stuart Mill in 1873 described Hare's system as
the greatest improvement of which the system of representative government is susceptible; an improvement which…exactly meets and cures the grand, and what before seemed inherent, defect of the representative system.[16][17]
In 1859 Mill wrote a review forFraser's Magazine under the title "Recent Writers on Reform", calling Hare'sTreatise remarkable, and noting also "Mr. Hare passes an unqualified and most just condemnation on the exclusion of women from the suffrage".[18]
A system along lines described by Hare was publicised byHenry Fawcett inMr. Hare's Reform Bill Simplified and Explained (1860).[19] Mill then shifted his ideas from 1859 slightly, emphasizing the role ofbullet voting in a voting context, as a safeguard for minority groups.[20]
An articleThe Machinery of Politics and Proportional Representation from 1872 byWilliam Robert Ware, in theAmerican Law Review, was reprinted in London by the Representative Reform Association, a group of allies of Hare set up with support fromWalter Morrison who fundedGeorge Howell as its secretary from 1868 to 1874, also involvingEdmond Beales.[5][21][22] Ware's ideas were close to Hare's.[23]Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) built on the classification used by Ware of voting systems, in his 1884 pamphletThe Principles of Parliamentary Representation, to give a general formulation and to emphasize larger district magnitude in multi-member districts and each voter casting one vote only.[24][25]
Hare was also known in the field oflaw reporting. At a period without official case reports, the published reports of key court decisions allowed them to be used as precedents. From 1841 he reported on theCourt of Chancery, onJames Wigram's decisions asVice-Chancellor of England.[8] The series of 11 volumes ofReports of Cases Adjudged in the High Court of Chancery culminated in 1858 with one on cases ofWilliam Wood.[26]
Wigram's decrees were considered lucid.[27] Two leading judicial decisions that are still relevant are covered only in Hare'sReports in Chancery:
Henderson v Henderson (1843) 3 Hare 100, from which the rule known as "the rule inHenderson v Henderson" is derived. (The rule provides, broadly, that when a matter becomes the subject of litigation between the parties, each party must bring their whole case before the court so that all aspects of it may be finally decided—subject, of course, to any appeal—once and for all. In the absence of special circumstances, the parties cannot later return to the court to advance arguments, claims or defences which they could have put forward for decision on the first occasion but failed to raise.)
Hare was a co-author, with Henry Iltid Nicholl and John Monson Carrow, of the initial 1840 and 1843 volumes ofCases Relating to Railways and Canals 1835–1840, resp. 1840–1842.[5][28][29]
Hare's energies were concentrated in an attempt to devise a system which would secureproportional representation of all classes in the United Kingdom, including minorities in theHouse of Commons and other electoral assemblies.[8]
Hare's interest in the issue dated from his appointment as Inspector of Charities. Danish thinkerCarl Christoffer Georg Andræ developed a similar system independently in 1855.[9] Hare's ideas intended to makepolitical representation more closely reflect the ideals ofparticipatory democracy, where all constituents could be heard.[35] He argued that "personal representation" could displace the dominant "monolithic bloc"political party.[36] Hare's original electoral system concept included each voter casting a singlepreferential vote in an at-large district covering the entire United Kingdom.
In the preface to the fourth edition ofTreatise on the Election of Representatives, Hare stated his belief that proportional representation would "end the evils of corruption, violent discontent and restricted power of selection or voter choice".[37] A great deal of writing on that theory developed and several societies were formed in the world for its adoption although Hare pointed out that his scheme was not meant to bear the title "representation for minorities". In the preface to his third edition of that work, Hare had asked:
Can it be supposed that the moment the electors are allowed a freedom of choice they will immediately be seized with a desire to vote for some distant candidate with whom they are unacquainted, rather than for those whom they know – who are near to them, whose speeches they have heard and who have personal recommendations to the favour and respect of the town and neighbourhood?
Hare's death in May 1891 occurred six years before the first use of proportional representation inTasmania in 1897. The recognition of Hare's name in theHare-Clark electoral system (i.e. Tasmanian system) honours his work.
The Single Transferable Vote method has been widely used for multiple-winner elections. While continuing to be the main method of elections in theRepublic of Ireland and for some elections in Australia, it has been widely used in numerous corporations and organizations, and has been employed in local elections in a few jurisdictions of the United States. 2007 saw the reintroduction of STV in public elections on the British mainland in elections toScottish local authorities. STV had been used for elections to Parliament for some University Seats from 1918 to 1945 and from 1918 to 1929 for Scottish boards.
Hare and his wife gave a font and stained glass window to St Paul's Church,Hook, London.[38]
Firstly, in Dorset on 7 August 1837, to Mary Samson, daughter of Thomas Samson ofKingston Russell. She died on 21 October 1855, and was buried in the churchyard of Brompton church. They had eight children.
Secondly, on 4 April 1872, to Eleanor Bowes Benson (1833–1890), second sister ofEdward White Benson, archbishop of Canterbury.[39]
There was one child, Mary Eleanor (1874–1883), of the second marriage. Hare was survived by seven children, and his will divided his estate equally between them, in a trust: they were three sons (Sherlock, Alfred, Lancelot) and four daughters (Marian, Alice, Katharine, Lydia Mary).[40]
The family home was Gosbury Hill inSurrey where Hare had a farmhouse built to his own design.[31] The place is now a street in a built-up area, in northChessington.
Of the sons:
Sherlock Hare (eldest son, 1840–1912) wascalled to the bar at theInner Temple in 1871.[41][42][43] He moved toRangoon, and leasedGreat Coco Island from the British Raj in 1878. He set up a business to growcoconuts there, but it failed financially, leaving him with losses by 1882. He then practised the law in Rangoon. After an apparently unprovoked attack on another barrister there, John Hannay, in 1891, he was treated as insane; and deported to the United Kingdom, where he was confined inHolloway Sanatorium.[44]
Alfred Richard Hare was a runholder at Blackmount,Otago District, New Zealand. He married in 1882 Alice Emily Ogilvy Millar, daughter of the Rev. James Ogilvy Millar.[45][46] His eldest daughter Eva married in 1914, as his second wife, herfirst cousin Lewis Hare Clayton.[47]
Herbert Thomas Hare, the second son, a civil engineer, died atHong Kong in 1874 aged 27.[49]
Of the daughters:
Marian (1839–1929, eldest, birth name Mary Ann), married in 1861 the Rev. William Ryton Andrews (1834–1922), ofEastbourne. She is known as a writer under the pseudonym "Christopher Hare".[50]
Lydia Mary married Charles Hoghton Clayton, brother of Lewis Clayton who had married Katharine, and was mother of the solicitor Sir Francis Hare Clayton.[58][59]
^Readman, Paul (2008).Land and Nation in England: Patriotism, National Identity, and the Politics of Land, 1880-1914. Boydell Press. p. 14.ISBN978-0-86193-297-9.
^Nicholl, Henry Iltid; Hare, Thomas; Carrow, John Monson; Oliver, Lionel; Beavan, Edward; Lefroy, Thomas Edward Preston (1840).Cases Relating to Railways and Canals: 1835-1840. Vol. I. A. Maxwell.
Foster, Joseph (1885)."Hare, Sherlock" .Men-at-the-Bar (second ed.). London: Hazell, Watson, and Viney.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Courtney, William Prideaux (1901). "Hare, Thomas". InLee, Sidney (ed.).Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). Vol. 2. London:Smith, Elder & Co.