Alexander Hardinge, 2nd Baron Hardinge of Penshurst

Alexander Henry Louis Hardinge, 2nd Baron Hardinge of Penshurst GCB GCVO MC PC (17 May 1894–29 May 1960) was Private Secretary to the Sovereign during the Abdication Crisis of Edward VIII and during most of the Second World War.

Hardinge was born in 1894, the son of The Hon. Charles Hardinge (who was created Baron Hardinge of Penshurst in 1910 and served as Viceroy of India from 1910 to 1916). He was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards and fought in the First World War, alongside his brother, rising to the rank of Lieutenant and winning the Military Cross. In 1920, he became Assistant Private Secretary to King George V and was promoted Captain. On 8 February 1921, he married Helen Gascoyne-Cecil (a daughter of Lord Edward Gascoyne-Cecil and his wife, Violet) and they had three children. In 1929 he was promoted Major.

Hardinge served as Assistant Private Secretary up until the King's death in 1936 and was promoted to Private Secretary upon the accession of King Edward VIII that same year; he continued in this role until his early retirement in 1943. In 1936 he also retired from the Army. Hardinge's elder brother, Edward, had died from wounds received in action in 1914 and so Hardinge succeeded as Baron Hardinge of Penshurst, on the demise of his father a year later, in 1944. Hardinge died in 1960 and his title was inherited by his son, George.

His wife Helen wrote his biography Loyal to Three Kings, William Kimber, London 1967.

External links

• Hardinge of Penshurst, Baron (UK, 1910), genealogy
• Hardinge, Charles, first Baron Hardinge of Penshurst (1858–1944), diplomatist and viceroy of India