Sir, (since 1897),Arthur Henry Hardinge (diplomat), G.C.M.G.,1910, K.C.B.,1904, (London, 1859 -Mortlake, Greater London, 1933, buried at St.Peter Churchyard, Fordcombe, Kent, England), a fluent speaker of the Spanish and the French languages, was the son of General Hon. Sir Arthur Edward Hardinger, (1828–1892), C.I.E., K.C.B., Commander of the Bombay Army, 1881–1885, Governor of Gibraltar, 1886–1890, studied Classics and Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford University, being in 1881 a Fellow of All Souls College starting work as a Junior Agent of the British Foreign Office, at Madrid, Spain,in 1883, under Ambassador Robert Morier, after getting around July 1880 a position with the Foreign Office, under the control of Lord Salisbury . When Robert Morier was appointed Ambassador to Saint Petersburg, Russia, he went there as his personal aid after having spent some time earlier with Lord Salisbury, too.
In 1887, he went to Istanbul, Turkey, under Sir William White, moving in 1890 to Bucharest, Romania. and to Cairo, now in Egypt, in 1891, under Sir Evelyn Baring accompanying the Russian Tsarevich trip to India afterwards.
In 1894 he was appointed Consul General to Zanzibar being promoted to Colonial Head, 1895–1900, at the British East Africa Protectorate, later, after July 23, 1920, a part of Kenya Colony and Protectorate, overseeing there the construction of a strategically railway to Uganda and the crushing of an Arabic ethnic rebellion. In 1900 - 1906 he was made Minister to Persia, stressing the importance of stopping Tsarist Russia on courting the political favours of the Persian government .
Concern by king Edward VII of England prompted him to accept a position at Brussels, Minister to Belgium,1906–1911, Minister to Portugal, 1911–1913, and British Ambassador to Spain, 1913–1919, a neutral country in World War I. There, he was frequented at Madrid and Barcelona by notorious widow literary woman and sister to the famous General Jose Millan Astray, Pilar Millan Astray, who was running some sort of World War I spyionnage network in both places and took thus opportunities to read and transcribe faithfully his diplomate notes.
He retired in 1920 ,aged 61, but his sons Henry Arthur Mina Hardinge, (1905–1925) and George Granville Douglas Hardinge ,(1912–1927), died young.
He became the author of several books, including "Life of Lord Carnarvon" (1925) and two volumes of autobiography, "A Diplomatist in Europe" (1927) and "A Diplomatist in the East".