Life

He was born on 22 June (new style) 1743 at Canbury, a manorhouse in Kingston upon Thames

Kingston upon Thames

Kingston upon Thames is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in southwest London. It was the ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned and is now a suburb situated south west of Charing Cross. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the...

. He was the third but eldest surviving son of Nicholas Hardinge

Nicholas Hardinge

Nicholas Hardinge was an English civil servant, clerk to the House of Commons from 1731 to 1752 and then Secretary to the Treasury, and a Member of Parliament known also as a neo-Latin poet.-Life:...

, by his wife Jane, daughter of Sir John Pratt

John Pratt (judge)

Sir John Pratt was an English judge and politician.Pratt was Lord Chief Justice of England from May 15, 1718 until March 2, 1725. He was appointed as an interim Chancellor of the Exchequer on February 2, 1721, until April 3, 1721....

. He was educated by Woodeson, a Kingston schoolmaster, and at Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 under Edward Barnard

Edward Barnard (provost)

-Life:Barnard was the son of a Bedfordshire clergyman. He was on the foundation at Eton, but, becoming superannuated, entered at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he became B.A. 1736, M.A. 1742, B.D. 1760, and D.D. 1766. He was fellow of his college from March 1743-4 to 1766...

.

Hardinge succeeded to his father's estate on the death of the latter on 9 April 1758. On 14 January 1761 he was admitted pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

. He took no B.A. degree, but in 1769 obtained that of M.A. by royal mandate. On 9 June 1769 he was called to the bar (Middle Temple

Middle Temple

The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...

), and soon had considerable practice at nisi prius. One of his friends at this time was Mark Akenside

Mark Akenside

Mark Akenside was an English poet and physician.Akenside was born at Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the son of a butcher. He was slightly lame all his life from a wound he received as a child from his father's cleaver...

 the poet. In 1776 he visited France and Switzerland.

On 20 October 1777 he married Lucy, daughter and heiress of Richard Long of Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, who survived her husband. They had no children, but Hardinge educated and adopted as his son and heir George Nicholas Hardinge

George Nicholas Hardinge

George Nicholas Hardinge was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Possessing an ability to endear himself to senior officers through his intellect and good manners, he served under several important naval commanders, whose patronage allowed...

, son of his brother, Henry Hardinge. Soon after his marriage Hardinge went to live at Ragman's Castle, a small house at Twickenham

Twickenham

Twickenham is a large suburban town southwest of central London. It is the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and one of the locally important district centres identified in the London Plan...

. Here he saw much of his neighbour, Horace Walpole, and later wrote about him. In April 1782 he was appointed solicitor-general to the Queen, and in March 1794 her attorney-general. In 1783 he was counsel in the House of Commons for the defence of Sir Thomas Rumbold, 1st Baronet, and on 16 December of that year was counsel at the bar of the House of Lords for the East India Company

East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

, in opposition to Charles James Fox

Charles James Fox

Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...

's India Bill.

In 1784 he was returned M.P. for Old Sarum

Old Sarum (UK Parliament constituency)

Old Sarum was the most infamous of the so-called 'rotten boroughs', a parliamentary constituency of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which was effectively controlled by a single person, until it was abolished under the Reform Act 1832. The constituency was the site of what had been...

, by the favour of his intimate friend, Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford

Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford

Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford was a British politician and connoisseur of art.-Early life:He was the son of Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc , a brother of William Pitt the Elder, and was born and baptised at Boconnoc in Cornwall on 3 March 1737. His mother was Christian, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas...

. He was re-chosen in November 1787, in 1790, 1796, and 1801. John Nichols

John Nichols (printer)

John Nichols was an English printer, author and antiquary.-Early life and apprenticeship:He was born in Islington, London to Edward Nichols and Anne Wilmot. On 22 June 1766 he married Anne Cradock daughter of William Cradock...

 says he was an eloquent and ingenious speaker. On 16 December 1788 he supported William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...

's resolution declaring the right of the Houses to appoint a regent. On 5 April 1792 he pleaded at Warwick

Warwick

Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire, England. The town lies upon the River Avon, south of Coventry and just west of Leamington Spa and Whitnash with which it is conjoined. As of the 2001 United Kingdom census, it had a population of 23,350...

 as counsel for the hundred in mitigation of the damages claimed by Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...

. In August 1787 he had been appointed senior justice of the Welsh counties of Breconshire, Glamorgan

Glamorgan

Glamorgan or Glamorganshire is one of the thirteen historic counties and a former administrative county of Wales. It was originally an early medieval kingdom of varying boundaries known as Glywysing until taken over by the Normans as a lordship. Glamorgan is latterly represented by the three...

, and Radnorshire

Radnorshire

Radnorshire is one of thirteen historic and former administrative counties of Wales. It is represented by the Radnorshire area of Powys, which according to the 2001 census, had a population of 24,805...

. He held the office till his death, which took place at Presteign from pleurisy

Pleurisy

Pleurisy is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining of the pleural cavity surrounding the lungs. Among other things, infections are the most common cause of pleurisy....

, on 26 April 1816.

Hardinge was ‘the waggish Welsh judge, Jefferies Hardsman’ of Lord Byron's Don Juan (xiii. stanza 88). It is stated that he collected more than £10,000 for charitable objects. He was vice-president and an early promoter of the Philanthropic Society. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries

Society of Antiquaries of London

The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...

 (elected November 1769) and of the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

 (elected April 1788). Among his correspondents were Jacob Bryant

Jacob Bryant

Jacob Bryant was a British scholar and mythographer, who has been described as "the outstanding figure among the mythagogues who flourished in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries".-Life:...

, Horace Walpole and Anna Seward

Anna Seward

Anna Seward was an English Romantic poet, often called the Swan of Lichfield.-Life:Seward was the elder daughter of Thomas Seward , prebendary of Lichfield and Salisbury, and author...

; Seward's letters to him are in her Letters (1811), vols. i. and ii.

Works

Hardinge made biographical contributions to Nichols's Literary Anecdotes and Literary Illustrations, including memoirs of Daniel Wray

Daniel Wray

-Life:Born on 28 November 1701 in the parish of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, he was the youngest child of Sir Daniel Wray , a London citizen and soap-boiler residing in Little Britain, by his second wife. His father was knighted on 24 March 1708, while high sheriff of Essex, where he possessed an...

 and Sneyd Davies. He also edited some of his father's writings. In 1791 he published A Series of Letters to the Rt. Hon. E. Burke [as to] the Constitutional Existence of an Impeachment against Mr. Hastings, London; 3rd edit. same year. In 1800 he published two editions, The Essence of Malone, or the Beauties of that fascinating Writer extracted from his immortal work in 539 pages and a quarter, just published, and with his accustomed felicity intituled "Some Account of the Life and Writings of John Dryden." Another Essence of Malone followed in 1801. He was also the author of Rowley and Chatterton in the Shades, 1782 and of other writings, many of which are printed in his Miscellaneous Works, edited by his friend, John Nichols, 3 vols., London, 1818.