Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hardy, John Stockdale
HARDY, JOHN STOCKDALE (1793–1849), antiquary, born at Leicester 7 Oct. 1793, was the only child of William Hardy, a manufacturer of that town. After receiving a good education in a private school at Leicester, he was admitted a proctor and notary public, i.e. a practitioner in the ecclesiastical courts of England. On the death of his maternal uncle, William Harrison, he succeeded him as registrar of the archdeaconry court of Leicester, of the court of the commissary of the Bishop of Lincoln, and of the court of the peculiar and exempt jurisdiction of the manor and soke of Rothley. In 1826 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He retained all his legal appointments till his death at Leicester on 19 July 1849.
In pursuance of his will his 'Literary Remains' were collected by John Gough Nichols, F.S.A., and published at Westminster in 1852, 8vo, pp. 487, with a portrait of the author prefixed, engraved by J. Brown, from a drawing by J. T. Mitchell. They include essays relative to ecclesiastical law, essays and speeches on political questions, and biographical, literary, and miscellaneous essays.
[Memoir by Nichols; (Gent. Mag. new ser. xxxii. 433, xxxvii. 385.]