Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/359

 first sanitarium in the hills at Darjeeling, and aided Lawrence in the establishment of the asylum for soldiers' children at Kussaulie. He exercised a wise discernment in the choice of officers, both civil and military.

After three years in India Hardinge retired at his own request, and Lord Dalhousie relieved him on 12 Jan. 1848. He quitted India in a time of profound peace. He was wrong in his anticipation that 'it would not be necessary to fire a gun again there for seven years to come.' But his sterling common sense and painstaking hard work undoubtedly strengthened the position of the English in India.

In August 1848 Hardinge was one of the two extra general officers selected for special service in Ireland under Sir Edward Blakeney [q. v.] His services were not put in requisition. Greville, with some other apocryphal statements, asserts that the appointment was made by the queen and Lord John Russell without consulting the Duke of Wellington, who was consequently displeased (Greville Memoirs, vi. 219). In 1852 Hardinge was made master-general of the ordnance. On the death of the Duke of Wellington later in the year, Hardinge, still a lieutenant-general (he became a full general in 1854), succeeded at the Horse Guards with the local rank of general and the title of general commanding in chief the forces. His tenure of this high office proved the least satisfactory episode in his career. At the ordnance he increased the number of guns available for field service; at the Horse Guards he improved infantry small-arms, and attempted to bring troops together for purposes of instruction. But age was telling on him, and a feeling of loyalty to his departed chief rendered him unwilling to disturb routine arrangements that had been sanctioned by Wellington. When, in 1854, the Crimean war began, the manifest want of preparation on the part of the military authorities led to disasters for which Hardinge was blamed by public opinion Avith perhaps more severity than he personally deserved (see, Crimea, vols. i. vii. ; United Serv. Mag. 1856, pt. iii. pp. 272-4; cf. Hardinge's evidence before the select committee in Sessional Papers, 1855, ix. pt. iii.)

Hardinge was raised to the rank of field-marshal on 2 Oct. 1855. Soon after the declaration of peace in the following year, when attending the queen at Aldershot to present the report of the Chelsea Board of Crimean Inquiry [see under ], he was stricken with paralysis. He rallied a little, but was unable to retain his post, in which he was succeeded by the Duke of Cambridge on 15 July 1856. He died at his seat, South Park, near Tunbridge Wells, on 24 Sept. 1856, in his seventy-second year. He was buried in the little neighbouring church of Fordcombe, the foundation-stone of which he had laid on his return from India, and for which he had contributed the greater part of the building fund.

On 10 Dec. 1821 he married Lady Emily Jane James (nee Stewart), half-sister of the second Marquis of Londonderry (Lord Castlereagh) and of the third marquis, and widow of John James, who died British minister-plenipotentiary to the Netherlands in 1818 (see, Peerage, under 'Londonderry;' also , Baronetage, under 'James of Langley Hall, Berks'). Lady Hardinge died 17 Oct. 1865, leaving two sons and two daughters. The elder son, Charles Stewart, the present viscount, born 12 Sept. 1822, was for some time his father's private secretary, and was under-secretary of state for war in Lord Derby's second administration, 1858-9 ; the younger, born 2 March 1828, General the Hon. Sir Arthur Edward Hardinge, K.C.B., C.S.I., a Crimean guardsman, is now governor of Gibraltar.

Hardinge had the foreign decorations of the Tower and Sword in Portugal, the Red Eagle in Prussia, St. George in Russia, and William the Lion in the Netherlands. There are two portraits of him, by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery. 