{"id":222,"date":"2025-05-14T02:22:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T02:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/?page_id=222"},"modified":"2026-08-28T15:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T19:50:26","slug":"hatsells-manual","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/rules-of-conduct\/political-manuals\/hatsells-manual\/","title":{"rendered":"Hatsell&#8217;s Manual"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">John Hatsell\u2019s work, the&nbsp;<em>Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons,&nbsp;<\/em>was Jefferson\u2019s most important source when he was researching rules of conduct and political processes for his own manual. Jefferson referenced Hatsell by name\u2014but ignored the title of the work\u2014which indicated that he believed that Hatsell\u2019s work was well-known enough on its own for his audience to understand the reference.[1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">John Hatsell (1733-1820) was the Clerk of the House of Commons from 1768 until 1820.[2] He was a well-known figure during his day, appearing in other literature from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Indeed, he was reported to be a \u201csagacious and experienced clerk of the House of Commons.\u201d[3] Even though Jefferson sought to update his work, Hatsell\u2019s influence was important and palpable. His books\u2014which went through more than four editions\u2014would have been widely circulated as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During his tenure as Clerk of the House of Commons, Hatsell authored at least two books that focused upon parliamentary rules and structure: A&nbsp;<em>Collection of Cases of Privilege of Parliament&nbsp;<\/em>(1776) and<em>&nbsp;Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons<\/em>&nbsp;(1781; second edition,1785\u201396; third edition,1796; fourth edition with additions by Charles Abbot, 1818).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Peruse the pages of Hatsell\u2019s famous manual below to gain familiarity with the type of conduct described in this seminal work.&nbsp;Digital copy courtesy of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/precedentsofproc01hats\">archive.org<\/a>&nbsp;on the Internet Archive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">E-Book: Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons; with observations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons - with observations\" src=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/embed\/precedentsofproc01hats\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"true\" mozallowfullscreen=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">References<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[1] Thomas Jefferson, A Manual of Parliamentary Practice, first edition 1801 (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1993), introduction.&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.senate.gov\/artandhistory\/history\/resources\/pdf\/SDoc103-8.pdf\">http:\/\/www.senate.gov\/artandhistory\/history\/resources\/pdf\/SDoc103-8.pdf.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[2] \u201cJohn Hatsell.\u201d www.parliament.uk (government website).&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/about\/living-heritage\/evolutionofparliament\/parliamentwork\/offices-and-ceremonies\/collections\/clerk-of-the-hoc\/engraving-john-hatsell\/\">http:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/about\/living-heritage\/evolutionofparliament\/parliamentwork\/offices-and-ceremonies\/collections\/clerk-of-the-hoc\/engraving-john-hatsell\/.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[3] Wilberforce, Robert Isaac and Samuel Wilberforce. 1838.&nbsp;<em>The Life of William Wilberforce by His Sons, Volume III: in five volumes<\/em>. London: John Murray [John Childs]. Digitized by Google books on April 15, 2009. Accessed March 29, 2016.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=g-eSS5b8zJcC&amp;dq=who+is+Mr.+Hatsel&amp;source=gbs_navlinks_s\">https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=g-eSS5b8zJcC&amp;dq=who+is+Mr.+Hatsel&amp;source=gbs_navlinks_s.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Hatsell\u2019s work, the&nbsp;Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons,&nbsp;was Jefferson\u2019s most important source when he was researching rules of conduct and political processes for his own manual. Jefferson referenced Hatsell by name\u2014but ignored the title of the work\u2014which indicated that he believed that Hatsell\u2019s work was well-known enough on its own for his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2872,"parent":218,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-222","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3123,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/222\/revisions\/3123"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloredconventions.org\/black-political-practices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}