Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst
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Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst (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, entered the diplomatic service in 1880, and became ambassador to Russia in 1904. In 1906 he was promoted to the position of Permanent Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office, and despite his own conservatism, worked closely with Liberal Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey. Hardinge was thus 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 and his own admiration for Mohandas Gandhi and criticism of the South African government's anti-Indian immigration policies.
With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Hardinge was able to make good of this, sending nearly all of the British troops in India, as well as many Indian troops, holding down India itself with a much smaller force than was customary. In 1916 he returned to England and to his former post as Undersecretary at the Foreign Office, serving now under Arthur Balfour. In 1920 he became ambassador to France, and finally retired in 1922.
| Preceded by: The Lord Sanderson | Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs 1906–1910 | Succeeded by: Sir Arthur Nicolson |
| Preceded by: The Earl of Minto | Viceroy of India 1910–1916 | Succeeded by: The Lord Chelmsford |
| Preceded by: Sir Arthur Nicolson | Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs 1916–1920 | Succeeded by: Sir Eyre Crowe |