Gathorne Hardy, 1st Earl of Cranbrook
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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.
| Preceded by: Sir Spencer Horatio Walpole | Home Secretary 1867–1868 | Succeeded by: Henry Austin Bruce | |||
| Preceded by: Edward Cardwell | War Secretary 1874–1878 | Succeeded by: Sir Frederick Stanley | |||
| Preceded by: The Marquess of Salisbury | Secretary of State for India 1878–1880 | Succeeded by: Marquess of Hartington | |||
| Preceded by: Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue | Lord President of the Council 1885–1886 | Succeeded by: The Earl Spencer | |||
| Preceded by: William Henry Smith | War Secretary 1886 | Succeeded by: Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman | |||
| Preceded by: Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth | Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1886 | Succeeded by: The Lord John Manners | |||
| Preceded by: The Earl Spencer | Lord President of the Council 1886–1892 | Succeeded by: The Earl of Kimberley
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