Arthur Henry Hardinge

Sir Arthur Henry Hardinge, GCMG, KCB (12 October 1859 – 27 December 1933) was a British diplomat.

Hardinge was born at 10 Chester Square, Belgravia, the only son of Sir Arthur Edward Hardinge and his wife, Mary Georgiana Frances "née" Ellis. As a boy, he served as a Page of Honour to Queen Victoria, to whom his father was an equerry. He re-established links with the court through his marriage on 4 November 1899, to his cousin, Alexandra Mina Ellis, a goddaughter of the Princess of Wales, and daughter of Sir Arthur Ellis, later a member of the household of Edward VII, who became godfather to their second son. The couple also had a daughter.

At Eton College, where he was known as "Hoppy" for his peculiar gait, Hardinge was remembered for the elegance of his Latin verse. At Balliol College, Oxford, which he entered in 1876, he took a second class in Classical Moderations, but followed with a first in modern history and, in 1881, became a Fellow of All Souls. Renowned for his sparkling wit, he had a lasting affection for Oxford, timing home leaves wherever possible to attend college meetings and gaudies at All Souls, and corresponding on college business with Warden Anson until he reluctantly relinquished his fellowship in 1894.

Hardinge entered the Foreign Office in July 1880, before he had taken his degree, with a nomination from Lord Salisbury, who remained a patron. As an undergraduate, he had travelled widely. He subsequently seized every opportunity to travel in remote places and was privately commended by Salisbury for his political reporting. Fluent in French from an early age, his success in Foreign Office language examinations provided welcome additions to his salary.

After spells in the Turkish and German departments of the Foreign Office, Hardinge's first overseas appointment in 1883 was to Madrid, under Sir Robert Morier. In 1885, following a short period in England as a précis writer to Lord Salisbury, Hardinge followed Morier to Saint Petersburg as his private secretary and subsequently travelled extensively in Russia and central Asia. There followed a series of appointments to Constantinople, under Sir William White, in 1887; to Bucharest in 1890; as a companion to the Tsarevich to India, where he crossed swords with the redoubtable Lord Harris, Governor of Bombay, for which he was commended by Lord Salisbury; and to Cairo in 1891 under Sir Evelyn Baring. Of these, Constantinople made such an impression that it became his ambition to become Ambassador to the Porte. When the post went Gerald Lowther in 1906, his disappointment was such that he nearly resigned, but was dissuaded by Curzon, an old Balliol friend.

Before this, however, in 1894, Hardinge had been appointed to Zanzibar, as political agent and consul-general, a post which he had accepted with delight. To this was added in 1895, the position of Commissioner for the new East Africa Protectorate. The administration of the little known territory between Mombasa and Lake Victoria, acquired for the strategic purpose of building a railway to Uganda, was a challenge to which Hardinge rose with enthusiasm. Whether defeating an Arab rebellion at the coast — and then championing the cause of dispossessed Arab slave owners — or demonstrating the efficacy of a maxim gun to potentially hostile 'chiefs', Hardinge revelled in his independence and freedom from protocol. The railway having passed through the protectorate, and rudimentary administration having been established, Hardinge left Mombasa in October 1900, amid general acclamation. The demands of more traditional diplomacy returned when he took up his next appointment, as Minister to Persia, later that year. This gave him further opportunities for travel, including a visit to the Persian Gulf with Curzon, now Viceroy of India, but this period also saw the early death of his first son.

Summoned to Balmoral when on leave in 1905, Hardinge recounted in his memoirs that, on the urgings of his father-in-law 'anxious for the sake of our two children and his daughter's health', he was invited by Edward VII to become Minister to Belgium. His heart 'was and remained for long afterwards in the Mohammedan East' but 'domestic considerations overcame my personal preferences' and 'I decided to accept the King's offer'. From that time, it seems (to quote from a contemporary) 'he was not quite in the same bright spirit we had known', and it became clear that he was not to reach the highest positions in the service that had earlier been predicted. Hardinge's European posts after he left Brussels in 1911 — Minister to Portugal from 1911 to 1913 and Ambassador to Spain from 1913 to 1919 — seem to have become increasingly onerous. He retired in 1920, having been made a Knight Bachelor in 1897, appointed a KCB in 1904 and GCMG in 1910.

The deaths of his two sons, in separate and tragic accidents, and his own failing health marred Hardinge's later years. His "Life of Lord Carnarvon" is thought by some to have been altered by another hand before publication in 1925. His own memoirs, "A Diplomatist in Europe" (1927) and "A Diplomatist in the East" (1928), gave excellent individual portraits of his colleagues, and flashes of his old humour. He died at his home, 31 York Avenue, Mortlake, Surrey, on 27 December 1933 and was buried in the churchyard of Fordcombe church, near Penshurst, Kent.

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