Background
He was the son of General Honorary Sir Arthur Edward Hardinge, (1828–1892), Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, Commander of the Bombay Army and later Governor of Gibraltar, and a grandson of the 1st Viscount Hardinge.
He was the son of General Honorary Sir Arthur Edward Hardinge, (1828–1892), Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, Commander of the Bombay Army and later Governor of Gibraltar, and a grandson of the 1st Viscount Hardinge.
A fluent speaker of Spanish and French, he studied Classics and Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford University, being a Fellow of All Souls College in 1881.
He was a Page of Honour to Queen Victoria 1870-1876. Hardinge entered the Foreign Office in 1880, and had his first posting as a Junior Agent of the British Foreign Office, at Madrid, Spain, in 1883, under Ambassador Robert Morier. He acted as a Secretary to the Foreign Minister Lord Salisbury in 1885, and when Robert Morier was appointed Ambassador to Saint St. Petersburg, Russia, he went there as his personal aide.
In 1887, he went to Istanbul, Turkey, under Sir William White, moving in 1890 to Bucharest, Romania.
He accompanied the Russian Tsarevich on his trip to India 1890-1891, and was then acting Consul-General in Cairo, Egypt, in 1891, under Sir Evelyn Baring. In 1894 he was appointed Consul General to Zanzibar being promoted to Colonial Head, 1895–1900, at the British East Africa Protectorate, overseeing there the construction of a strategically railway to Uganda and the crushing of an Arabic ethnic rebellion.
In October 1900 he was appointed Consul-General in Persia, a post which was later upgraded to Minister. Staying in Teheran until 1906, he stressed the importance of stopping Tsarist Russia on courting the political favours of the Persian government.
He retired in 1920, aged 61.
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". A supporter of right-wing politics, he joined the British Fascists. Hardinge married, in 1899, Alexandra Mina Ellis, daughter of Major-General Sir Arthur Ellis.