Author: Hardinge, Nicholas
Biography:
HARDINGE, Nicholas (1699-1758: ODNB)
Son of the vicar of Kingston, Surrey, Gideon Hardinge (1666-1712) and his wife Mary Westbrooke, he was born at Canbury, Kingston, on 7 Feb. 1699. From Eton he went to King’s College, Cambridge (matric. 1718/19, BA 1722, MA 1726), where he was made a Fellow in 1722. At the same time he sought training in law, entered the Middle Temple in 1721, and was called to the bar in 1725. As chief clerk to the House of Commons from 1731 to 1752, he was responsible for modernizing the parliamentary journals; in 1752 he exchanged that position for that of joint secretary to the Treasury. He was elected MP for Eye in Suffolk from 1748 to 1758. On 19 Dec. 1738 he married Jane Pratt, daughter of the Lord Chief Justice. The couple had twelve children, the last of them born after his father’s death. The eldest surviving son was George Hardinge (q.v.), who inherited Canbury and undertook the editing of his father’s poetry, most of it unpublished and most of it in Greek or Latin, as Poemata (1780), Latin Verses (1780), and Poems, Latin, Greek, and English (1818, published by John Nichols). He died in London on 9 Apr. 1758 and was buried in the family vault at All Saints, Kingston, on Apr. 13. (ODNB 31 Jan. 2022; findmypast.com 31 Jan. 2022; ACAD)