Gathorne Hardy, 1st Earl of Cranbrook

The Rt Hon. The Viscount Cranbrook

Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, 1st Earl of Cranbrook GCSI PC (1 October 1814 – 30 October 1906) was an English politician.

He was born in Bradford, the son of John Hardy, and belonged to a Yorkshire family. Entering upon active political life in 1847, eleven years after his graduation at Oxford, and nine years after his call to the bar, he offered himself as a candidate for the Bradford constituency, but was unsuccessful. In 1856 he was returned for Leominster, and in 1865 defeated William Gladstone in the Oxford University constituency by a majority of 180. In 1866 he became President of the Poor Law Board in Lord Derby's third government. When in 1867 Spencer H. Walpole resigned, from dissatisfaction with Benjamin Disraeli's Reform Bill, Hardy succeeded him at the Home Office. In 1874 he was Secretary for War; and when in 1878 Lord Salisbury took the Foreign Office upon the resignation of Lord Derby, Viscount Cranbrook (as Hardy became within a month afterwards) succeeded him at the India Office. At the same time he had assumed the additional family surname of Gathorne, which had been that of his mother. In Lord Salisbury's governments of 1885 and 1886 Lord Cranbrook was Lord President of the Council, and upon his retirement from public life concurrently with the resignation of the cabinet in 1892 he was raised to an earldom.

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Political offices
Preceded by: Sir Spencer Walpole	Home Secretary 1867–1868	Succeeded by: Henry Bruce
Preceded by: Edward Cardwell	War Secretary 1874–1878	Succeeded by: Sir Frederick Stanley
Preceded by: The Marquess of Salisbury	Secretary of State for India 1878–1880	Succeeded by: Marquess of Hartington
Preceded by: Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue	Lord President of the Council 1885–1886	Succeeded by: The Earl Spencer
Preceded by: William Smith	War Secretary 1886	Succeeded by: Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Preceded by: Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1886	Succeeded by: The Lord John Manners
Preceded by: The Earl Spencer	Lord President of the Council 1886–1892	Succeeded by: The Earl of Kimberley
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by: New Creation	Earl of Cranbrook 1892–1906	Succeeded by: James Gathorne-Hardy