Charles Hardinge

Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst KG GCB GCSI GCMG GCIE GCVO ISO PC (20 June 1858 – 2 August 1944) was a British diplomat and statesman who served as Viceroy of India from 1910 to 1916.

Hardinge, the grandson of Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge, a former Governor-General of India, was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He entered the diplomatic service in 1880, was appointed first secretary at Tehran in 1896 and first secretary at Saint Petersburg in 1898 when he was promoted over the heads of seventeen of his seniors. After a brief stint as Assistant Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs he became Ambassador to Russia in 1904. In 1906 he was promoted to the position of Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, and despite his own conservatism, worked closely with Liberal Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey. In 1907 he declined the post of Ambassador to the United States Hardinge was raised to the peerage as Baron Hardinge of Penshurst in 1910, and appointed by the Asquith government as Viceroy of India.

His tenure was a memorable one, seeing the visit of King George V and the Delhi Durbar of 1911, as well as the move of the capital from Calcutta to New Delhi in 1912. Although Hardinge was the target of assassination attempts by Indian nationalists, his tenure generally saw better relations between the British administration and the nationalists, thanks to the implementation of the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909, Hardinge's own admiration for Mohandas Gandhi, and criticism of the South African government's anti-Indian immigration policies.

Hardinge's efforts paid off in 1914 during the First World War. Due to improved colonial relationships, Britain was able to deploy nearly all of the British troops in India as well as many native Indian troops to areas outside of India. In particular the British Indian Army was able to play a significant role in the Mesopotamian campaign^[1]

In 1916, Hardinge returned to his former post in England as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, serving with Arthur Balfour. In 1920 he became ambassador to France before his retirement in 1922. He died in Penshurst, Kent, on August 2, 1944.

Styles

• 1858-1880: Charles Hardinge
• 1880-1895: The Honourable Charles Hardinge, Esq.
• 1895-1903: The Honourable Charles Hardinge, Esq, CB
• 1903-1904: The Honourable Charles Hardinge, Esq, CB, CVO
• 1904-1905: The Honourable Sir Charles Hardinge, KCMG, CB, CVO
• 1 January 1905-9 November 1905: The Right Honourable Sir Charles Hardinge, GCMG, KCVO, CB
• 9 November 1905-1906: The Right Honourable Sir Charles Hardinge, GCMG, GCVO, CB
• 1906-: The Right Honourable Sir Charles Hardinge, GCMG, GCVO, CB, ISO

Government offices
Preceded by The Earl of Minto	Viceroy of India 1910–1916	Succeeded by The Lord Chelmsford
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Charles Stewart Scott	British Ambassador to Russia 1904–1906	Succeeded by Sir Arthur Nicolson
Preceded by The Lord Sanderson	Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs 1906–1910	Succeeded by Sir Arthur Nicolson
Preceded by Sir Arthur Nicolson	Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs 1916–1920	Succeeded by Eyre Crowe
Preceded by The Earl of Derby	British Ambassador to France 1920–1922	Succeeded by The Marquess of Crewe
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by New Creation	Baron Hardinge of Penshurst 1910–1944	Succeeded by Alexander Hardinge

v • d • e Viceroys of India East India Trading Company (1773-1858) Warren Hastings (1774-1785) · Sir John MacPherson (1785-1786) · Marquess Cornwallis (1786-1793) · Baron Teignmouth (1793-1798) · Sir Alured Clarke (1798) · Marquess Wellesley (1798-1805) · Marquess Cornwallis (1805) · Sir George Hilario Barlow (1805-1807) · Earl of Minto (1807-1813) · Marquess of Hastings (1813-1823) · John Adam (1823) · Earl Amherst (1823-1828) · William Butterworth Bayley (1828) · Lord William Bentinck (1828-1835) · Sir Charles Metcalfe (1835-1836) · Earl of Auckland (1836-1842) · Earl of Ellenborough (1842-1844) · William Wilberforce Bird (1844) · Viscount Hardinge (1844-1848) · Marquess of Dalhousie (1848-1856) · Viscount Canning (1856-1858) British Government1 (1858-1947) Earl Canning (1858-1862) · Earl of Elgin and Kincardine (1862-1863) · Baron Napier of Magdala (1863) · Sir William Denison (1863-1864) · Baron Lawrence (1864-1869) · Earl of Mayo (1869-1872) · Sir John Strachey (1872) · Lord Napier (1872) · Earl of Northbrook (1872-1876) · Earl of Lytton (1876-1880) · Marquess of Ripon (1880-1884) · Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (1884-1888) · Marquess of Lansdowne (1888-1894) · Earl of Elgin and Kincardine (1894-1899) · Baron Curzon of Kedleston (1899-1905) · Earl of Minto (1905-1910) · Baron Hardinge of Penshurst (1910-1916) · Viscount Chelmsford (1916-1921) · Marquess of Reading (1921-1926) · Baron Irwin (1926-1931) · Marquess of Willingdon (1931-1936) · Marquess of Linlithgow (1936-1943) · Viscount Wavell (1943-1947) · Viscount Mountbatten of Burma (1947) After Indian  independence2 Viscount Mountbatten of Burma (1947-1948) · Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari (1948-1950) After Pakistani  independence3 Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1947-1948) · Khawaja Nazimuddin (1948-1951) · Ghulam Muhammad (1951-1955) · Iskander Mirza (1955-1956) 1 Following the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny. 2 As representatives of George VI in his rôle as King of India (1947-1950). 3 As representatives of George VI and then Elizabeth II in their rôles as King and Queen of Pakistan, respectively.

References

1. ^ Lord Hardinge and the Mesopotamia Expedition and Inquiry, 1914-1917; Douglas Goold; The Historical Journal, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Dec., 1976), pp. 919-945

• Briton C. Busch, Hardinge of Penshurst: a study of the old diplomacy, Hamden, Conn.: Published for the Conference on British Studies and Indiana University at South Bend by Archon Books, 1980.
• Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, The Reminiscences of Lord Hardinge of Penshurst (London, 1947)
• Zara S. Steiner, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy 1898-1914 )Cambridge, 1969)

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