Profile: Harold Hanson

Born in February 1932 in West Hartlepool, England, Harold Hanson says he became a lawyer by accident. He received a scholarship to study at Oxford but did not take it up because his parents could not afford the accommodation and fees. His family decided to immigrate to Australia but during the voyage, Hanson’s mother sadly passed away. 

By early 1950, he was living in Bega and headed north with the intention to study an arts degree at Sydney University. Upon arrival, he was told that he needed to have at least 12 months residency before he could enrol so he packed his bags and returned to Bega in need of a job. As fate would have it, a girl from the church asked if he knew how to keep a set of books, because the law firm she worked at was looking for a bookkeeper. “I said, ‘of course I know how to keep a set of books.’ I had no idea in the world, but I was not about to say no,” admits Hanson. He went for an interview and started the following week. 

In those days, there were no computers or accounting software. All the books were balanced manually, and the law firm had not balanced the trust account for some time. While working as a bookkeeper, Hanson found out about the solicitors’ admission board course and a year later, he enrolled in the course from Bega. 

Hanson believes that young people should spend some time in the bush and in regional areas. “You meet people on a different level,” he says.

One of the benefits is the different personalities you encounter. Hanson has vivid memories dealing with a “gentleman rogue” from Wonboyn, a township 30 odd miles south of Eden. Hanson explains there were only two sorts of people that lived in Eden at the time: those that paid their debt and those that didn’t. This particular person never had any money and after getting into strife, would often turn up with a bag of oysters as payment. Reflecting on his long career, Hanson says he was fortunate to find himself in Wollongong in the 1960s as it was an important period of development for the region. Although it was the third city in NSW, Wollongong at the time was still “a bit of an overgrown country town,” he says.

After almost seven decades in law, Hanson strongly believes that practitioners should specialise. In general practice, “you need to know when there’s a problem. … [Y]ou can’t take instructions from someone in the morning and then try to find the law for it during [the] night,” he says.

Throughout his career, Hanson has been involved in high-profile transactions, and he was retained as a solicitor for the University of Wollongong and BHP.

Hanson was involved in the development of Nan Tien Temple in Wollongong. He was retained as a solicitor on the project, and recalls charging $5000, even though this did not cover all the work involved. Hanson recalls it being “an extraordinary exercise.”

He couldn’t have done any of it alone. “I’ve had extraordinary staff. I’ve had four girls … who worked for me for over 30 years … I know who ran the office and it wasn’t me,” he says.