Hanson plc (formerly Hanson Trust plc) is a British based international building materials company, headquartered in Maidenhead. Traded on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index for many years, the company was acquired by a division of German rival Heidelberg Cement in August 2007.

Hanson was built up by James Hanson, later Lord Hanson, and Gordon White, later Baron White of Hull, who set up Hanson Trust in 1964.

Their policy was to purchase underperforming assets and turn them around. Hanson and White were willing to make any measures necessary to reform a business, including mass redundancies, and therefore attracted some opposition and accusations that they were "asset strippers", but they also delivered value for their shareholders and swept away the complacency that had bedevilled British and American management for far too long.

One of the most notable takeovers, at least to the general public, was the acquisition in 1983 of the United Drapery Stores, or UDS, group, which owned many of Britain's most well-known high street clothes shops and department stores, including John Collier, Richard Shops and the chain of Allders department stores. To fund this purchase Hanson broke up UDS and sold John Collier to a management buy-out team, and Richard Shops to Habitat, keeping only the core department store business.

Duncan Spencer (born 5 April 1972) was an English cricketer. Born in Nelson, Lancashire, he was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast bowler. Spencer's first cricketing appearances came as part of an England A side playing against a Western Australia XI during an Australian tour in 1993.

Spencer's debut first-class match came in the 1993 County Championship, though he only played one further match before signing for Western Australia in time for the 1994 Sheffield Shield. Western Australia finished in third place in the league during Spencer's season at the club. Just three months after the end of the competition, he played once again in the County Championship, though he made little impact in the four games in which he played and Kent finished the season in midtable as Spencer dropped out of the county game with back trouble, but not before none other than Sir Vivian Richards rated Spencer as the fastest bowler he had ever faced.^{[citation needed]}

After 6 years out of the Western Australian side, he returned to play six one-day matches for WA in the 2000/01 season and after the last of these matches, he returned a positive drug test to the anabolic steroid nandrolone. He was found guilty and suspended from all competitive cricket for 18 months. Spencer claimed that it was taken to relieve the pain caused by chronic back injuries.