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Only son of Humphrey Alers Hankey, Nigel was born on 17 Jul 1911 at Durban. He was educated at Harrow, where on one occasion he set off an explosion which blew out a good many windows at his house, Newlands. On returning to Cape Town, took up several appointments which his father had obtained for him there. During this period he met Joan Douglas Medlicott (1910-1995), daughter of Canon Robin Medlicott; they returned to England and were married on 30 Jul 1935 at St James’, Piccadilly. Joan had qualified as an aeronautical engineer, and in about 1930 obtained a licence to ‘fly all types of flying machine’.
Nigel and Joan had one son, Robin. After their marriage they lived for a time at Westerham, and Nigel worked for a firm of stockbrokers in the City. He drove a large Bentley sports car. Nigel enlisted at the beginning of the war in the 17th/21st Lancers and later rose to the rank of Major. After the end of the war he was in the Allied Control Commission in Austria.
Divorced in 1944, Nigel was married secondly in 1948 at Klagenfurt, Austria to Friedericke Dagmar Amalia Leopoldine Anna, daughter of Cornelius Rodolphus Henrycus Wrchovszky de Werchowina in Peruszicz of Graz, Austria, a gentleman of ancient Hungarian descent. Nigel was a man of great charm, but quite hopeless with money, unlike Dagmar who was a most capable business woman.
They lived for a few years at Ndola in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), where Nigel had a franchise for Massey Ferguson tractors, and later lived for many years in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), where they ran a number of small farming and retail businesses. Nigel’s outspoken political views were not acceptable in the newly independent Zimbabwe, and he and Dagmar moved to the Cape, where Nigel died on 30 Jan 1985. Dagmar died on 27 Aug 1995 at Somerset West, Cape, leaving one daughter, Suzi, by her first marriage.