Gathorne Hardy, 1st Earl of Cranbrook

Gathorne Hardy, later Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, 1st Earl of Cranbrook (1 October, 1814 - 3 October, 1906), was an English politician.

He was born at Bradford, 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, he offered himself as a candidate for Bradford, but was unsuccessful. In 1856 he was returned for Leominster, and in 1865 defeated William Gladstone at Oxford. In 1866 he became President of the Poor Law Board in Lord Derby's third government. When in 1867 Spencer H. Walpole resigned, from dissatisfaction with Benjamin Disraeli's Reform Bill, 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 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 governments of 1885 and 1886 Lord Cranbrook was Lord 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.

{| border="2" align="center" |- |width="30%" align="center"|Preceded by:
New Creation |width="40%" align="center"|Earl of Cranbrook |width="30%" align="center" rowspan="2"|Followed by:
James Gathorne-Hardy |}

• This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Please update as needed.