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Hart was born in 1907, the son of Rose Samson Hart and Simeon Hart, in Harrogate, to which his parents had moved from the East End of London. His father was a prosperous Jewish tailor of German and Polish origin; his mother, of Polish origin, daughter of successful retailers in the clothing trade, handled customer relations and the finances of their firm. Hart had an elder brother, Albert, and a younger sister, Sybil.
He was educated at Cheltenham College, Bradford Grammar School and at New College, Oxford. Hart took an outstanding First in Classical Greats in 1929.
He became a Barrister and practiced successfully at the Chancery Bar from 1932 to 1940. He was good friends with Richard (later Lord) Wilberforce, Douglas Jay, and Christopher Cox, among others. He received a Harmsworth Scholarship to the Middle Temple and also wrote literary journalism for the periodical John O'London's Weekly.
During World War II, Hart worked with MI5, a division of British military intelligence concerned with unearthing spies who had penetrated Britain, where he renewed Oxford friendships including working with the philosophers Gilbert Ryle and Stuart Hampshire. He worked closely with Dick White, later head of MI5 and then of MI6. Shortly after the war in Europe had ended, he and White were joined in conversation by Hugh Trevor-Roper, a conversation which revolved around what had happened to Hitler. Trevor-Roper's biographer has written that over the third bottle of hock, the idea emerged that a systematic search should be made, a search which resulted ultimately in the historian's famous book, The Last Days of Hitler.
His war work took him on occasion to MI5 offices at Blenheim Palace, family home of the Dukes of Marlborough and the place where Winston Churchill was born. There he was somehow able to read the diaries of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, wife of the founder of the dynasty John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Hart's wit and humanity are demonstrated by the fact that he particularly enjoyed the passage where Sarah tells that John had been away for a long time, had arrived suddenly, and enjoyed me straight way in his boots.
Hart did not return to his legal practice after the War, preferring instead to accept the offer of a teaching fellowship (in philosophy, not Law) at New College, Oxford. Hart cites J. L. Austin as particularly influential during this time. The two jointly taught from 1948 a seminar on 'Legal and Moral Responsibility.' Among his publications at this time were the essays 'A Logician's Fairytale,' 'Is There Knowledge by Acquaintance?,' 'Law and Fact,' and 'The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights.'
In 1952, he was elected Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford. It was in the summer of that year that he began writing his most famous book, The Concept of Law, though it was not published until 1961. In the interim, he published another major work, Causation in the Law (with Tony Honore) (1959). He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1959 to 1960.
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Hart was born in 1907, the son of Rose Samson Hart and Simeon Hart, in Harrogate, to which his parents had moved from the East End of London. His father was a prosperous Jewish tailor of German and Polish origin; his mother, of Polish origin, daughter of successful retailers in the clothing trade, handled customer relations and the finances of their firm. Hart had an elder brother, Albert, and a younger sister, Sybil.
He was educated at Cheltenham College, Bradford Grammar School and at New College, Oxford. Hart took an outstanding First in Classical Greats in 1929.
He became a Barrister and practiced successfully at the Chancery Bar from 1932 to 1940. He was good friends with Richard (later Lord) Wilberforce, Douglas Jay, and Christopher Cox, among others. He received a Harmsworth Scholarship to the Middle Temple and also wrote literary journalism for the periodical John O'London's Weekly.
During World War II, Hart worked with MI5, a division of British military intelligence concerned with unearthing spies who had penetrated Britain, where he renewed Oxford friendships including working with the philosophers Gilbert Ryle and Stuart Hampshire. He worked closely with Dick White, later head of MI5 and then of MI6. Shortly after the war in Europe had ended, he and White were joined in conversation by Hugh Trevor-Roper, a conversation which revolved around what had happened to Hitler. Trevor-Roper's biographer has written that over the third bottle of hock, the idea emerged that a systematic search should be made, a search which resulted ultimately in the historian's famous book, The Last Days of Hitler.
His war work took him on occasion to MI5 offices at Blenheim Palace, family home of the Dukes of Marlborough and the place where Winston Churchill was born. There he was somehow able to read the diaries of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, wife of the founder of the dynasty John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Hart's wit and humanity are demonstrated by the fact that he particularly enjoyed the passage where Sarah tells that John had been away for a long time, had arrived suddenly, and enjoyed me straight way in his boots.
Hart did not return to his legal practice after the War, preferring instead to accept the offer of a teaching fellowship (in philosophy, not Law) at New College, Oxford. Hart cites J. L. Austin as particularly influential during this time. The two jointly taught from 1948 a seminar on 'Legal and Moral Responsibility.' Among his publications at this time were the essays 'A Logician's Fairytale,' 'Is There Knowledge by Acquaintance?,' 'Law and Fact,' and 'The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights.'
In 1952, he was elected Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford. It was in the summer of that year that he began writing his most famous book, The Concept of Law, though it was not published until 1961. In the interim, he published another major work, Causation in the Law (with Tony Honore) (1959). He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1959 to 1960.
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