INTRODUCTION

SIR NICHOLAS JOHN Hannen was the first professionally British qualified judge based full-time in Japan and was involved, in one way or another, in British legal affairs there from 1871 until his death in 1900. He was in charge of the Yokohama Branch of the Supreme Court from 1871 to 1874; Crown Advocate for China and Japan from 1879 to 1881; Judge of Her Britannic Majesty's Court for Japan (HMCJ) from 1881 to 1891; and, thereafter, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for China and Japan until his death in 1900.

Born on 21 August 1842, he was the 13th child and sixth son of a London wine merchant, James Hannen and Susan (née Lee and originally from Nayland, Suffolk). In becoming a barrister, he followed in the footsteps of his eldest brother, James, who went on to become a Law Lord. Hannen was educated at the City of London School and St. Servais College in Liege before graduating 8th in his class from University College London in Logic and Moral Philosophy in 1865. He was admitted as a student of the Inner Temple on 5 November 1863 and was called to the Bar on 6 June 1866.

SHANGHAI, 1868–1871

In 1868, he emigrated to Asia where he was admitted to the Hong Kong Bar on 2 March 1868 before, almost immediately, moving to Shanghai where he established a practice. In 1869, he married Jessie Maria Harriette Woodhouse, the eldest daughter of James Woodhouse of Henley on Thames.

Two of his early cases in Shanghai had a Japanese connection. In 1868, in one of the first cases in Shanghai arising out of Japan-based facts, he acted for the Chief Engineer of the Osaka in prosecuting, under the Merchant Shipping Act 1854, the master for assault and refusing to allow him and several other engineers ashore in Hakodate to see the consul. The next year before the Supreme Court, Hannen questioned the legitimacy of a five-man jury in the courts in China and Japan – arguing that the Crown had no power to make regulations at variance with the laws of England and limiting jury numbers to five was unconstitutional.