George Hardinge was an English judge, writer and Member of Parliament.
Background
He was born on 22 June (new style) 1743 at Canbury, a manorhouse in Kingston upon Thames. He was the third but eldest surviving son of Nicholas Hardinge, by his wife Jane, daughter of Sir John Pratt. Hardinge succeeded to his father"s estate on the death of the latter on 9 April 1758.
Education
He was educated by Woodeson, a Kingston schoolmaster, and at Eton College under Edward Barnard.
Career
On 14 January 1761 he was admitted pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge. He took no Bachelor of Arts degree, but in 1769 obtained that of Master of Arts by royal mandate. On 9 June 1769 he was called to the bar (Middle Temple), and soon had considerable practice at nisi prius.
In 1776 he visited France and Switzerland.
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, in opposition to Charles James Fox"s India Bill. In 1784 he was returned Member of Parliament He was re-chosen in November 1787, in 1790, 1796, and 1801.
John Nichols says he was an eloquent and ingenious speaker.
On 16 December 1788 he supported William Pitt the Younger"s resolution declaring the right of the Houses to appoint a regent. On 5 April 1792 he pleaded at Warwick as counsel for the hundred in mitigation of the damages claimed by Joseph Priestley. In August 1787 he had been appointed senior justice of the Welsh counties of Breconshire, Glamorgan, and Radnorshire.
He held the office till his death, which took place at Presteign from pleurisy, on 26 April 1816.
Hardinge was ‘the waggish Welsh judge, Jefferies Hardsman’ of Lord Byron"s Don Juan (xiii stanza 88). lieutenant 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 (elected November 1769) and of the Royal Society (elected April 1788).
Among his correspondents were Jacob Bryant, Horace Walpole and Anna Seward.
Seward"s letters to him are in her Letters (1811), volumes i. and ii.
Membership
Royal Society; 1st United Kingdom Parliament. 16th Parliament of Great Britain. 17th Parliament of Great Britain.
18th Parliament of Great Britain.