Background
Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy was born at Bradford on the 1st of October 1814, the son of John Hardy, and belonged to a Yorkshire family.
Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy was born at Bradford on the 1st of October 1814, 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, Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy offered himself as a candidate for Bradford, but was unsuccessful. In 1856 he was returned for Leominster, and in 1865 defeated Mr Gladstone at Oxford. In 1866 he became president of the Poor Law Board in Lord Derby's new administration. When in 1867 Mr Walpole resigned, from dissatisfaction with Mr Disraeli's Reform Bill, Mr 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 Mr 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 administrations of 1885 and 1886 Lord Cranbrook was 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.
Lord Cranbrook married Jane, daughter of James Orr, in 1838. They had four sons and five daughters.