Maurice K. Hanson

(1918 – May 12, 1981)

Maurice Kimpton Hanson was a UK fan first from Leicester and later London active in the 1930s and 1940s. He was the director of Nuneaton chapter of the Science Fiction League, the third in the UK, and the editor of its journal, Novae Terrae, the UK's first fanzine.

Hanson had been at school with D. R. Smith. On June 7, 1935, the Nuneaton group became the twenty-second Chapter of the Science Fiction League with five charter members, including Hanson as its director. The group was later contacted by Smith and Hanson replied, bringing him into their ranks. The two became lifelong friends. In March 1936 the group produced the first issue of Novae Terrae, co-edited by Hanson and Dennis Jacques.

In January 1937 Hanson attended the 1937 Leeds Convention, the only member of the Nuneaton group to do so, and in its aftermath Novae Terrae became the official organ of the Science Fiction Association while the group became the Leicester branch of that SFA. However it was short-lived and broke up in August when Hanson moved to London taking his duplicator with him. Novae Terrae #16 came from his new London address and #18 added Ted Carnell and Arthur C. Clarke as associate editors. Hanson attended the Second British Convention in April 1938 and Novae Terrae #26 in September saw the editorial address move to The Flat in Gray's Inn Road where Hanson joined Clarke and William Temple. Temple later wrote in Gargoyle #1

Another early visitor was Maurice Hanson, who lived in a nearby [bed sitting room]. I suggested he come and live with us. He did. I remember the afternoon he came to stay carrying two armfuls of typewriter down Gray's Inn Road. The ribbon spool had dropped off his machine and was clanking gaily along behind 30 feet of ribbon. A couple of cats were chasing it. When he crossed the tram-lines a tram came along and ran over his ribbon. He was almost dragged to a horrible death.

In January 1939 Hanson handed the title to Carnell who published further issues as New Worlds. He was called up in July 1939, likely the first British fan to be conscripted, and he was part of the British Expeditionary Force in France. In VOM #8 (August 1940) Ted Carnell reported that Hanson had 'arrived home safely from France when the general evacuation took place', meaning he'd been at Dunkirk. Carnell later wrote:

My gosh, if there was ever one of the gang who didn't fit into that outfit [the army]] it's Hanson. He was the quietest and most studious guy among us – but the first to go. 

On September 20 and 21, 1941 Hanson was able to get leave to attend an informal meeting of London fans, the first time the others had seen him since before Dunkirk. Carnell said that, 'He looked fine, having filled out and become quite a tough-looking customer'. In later years the meeting was informally christened Bombcon. In June 1942 Hanson was a founder member of the British Fantasy Society. Throughout the rest of the War years he served in various places in the UK including the Orkney Island to the north of Scotland. At its conclusion it seemed for a while that he would be posted to the Middle East but he was demobbed in January 1946.

On the second day of the Bombcon in 1941 an open-air meeting had discussed the question 'What should fandom do after war?' In Hanson's case his interest seemed to be fading. In a profile piece for Futurian War Digest #37 (October 1944) he said that, 'First youthful glow of enthusiasm for science-fiction has worn off by now' and he gave his literary interests as 'George Eliot, Jane Austen, Arnold Bennett, P. G. Wodehouse & The New Yorker.' He was however appointed 'honorary secretary' of the BFS in 1946. Bill Temple writing to New Futurian #3 in Autumn 1954, said Hanson was:

... vegetating quietly in Leicester ... writing to no s-f people except myself (and then only twice a year), and working daily in a science lab of the local university

In fact D. R. Smith remained in contact with Hanson and that correspondence revealed that from at least 1975 he was living in Kettering and working at London's Imperial College where he was a librarian in their transport library. In 1983, after his death, their Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering established a Maurice Hanson Prize with money raised by friends and colleagues, 'for annual award to the student who produces the best performance in the written papers on the Advanced Course in Transport'.

Fanzines and Apazines:

• Novae Terrae (first editor)
• Report of the Second Convention and Annual General Meeting (with Ken Chapman, and Eric C. Williams)

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Person

1918—1981

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