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.]
HARDY, NATHANIEL, D.D. (1618–1670), dean of Rochester, son of Anthony Hardy of London, was born in the Old Bailey, 14 Sept. 1618, and was baptised in the church of St. Martin's, Ludgate. After being educated in London, he became a commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford (1632); graduated B. A. 20 Oct. 1635, and soon after migrated to Hart Hall, where he graduated M. A. 27 June 1638. Returning to London after being ordained at an exceptionally early age, he became a popular preacher with presbyterian leanings. In 1643 he was appointed preacher to the church of St. Dionis, Backchurch, in Fenchurch Street, where he drew together a congregation chiefly of presbyterians. In 1645 he was present at Uxbridge during the negotiations between the royal and the parliamentary commissioners, and was led by the arguments of Dr. Hammond (the chief champion on the episcopalian side) to alter his views. On his return to London he preached a sermon of recantation, and was thenceforth a strenuous episcopalian. At the same time he attended meetings of a presbyterian classis (of which Calamy was moderator in 1648) as late as 1651. Wood unfairly attributes his conduct to self-interest. He continued to officiate at St. Dionis, his many presbyterian friends remaining with him, through those 'perilous times when it was a crime to own a prelatical clergyman' (Hardy, sermon on the fire of London, Lamentation, Mourning, and Woe). Under the Commonwealth he maintained, without molestation from the authorities, a 'Loyal Lecture,' at which monthly collections were made for the suffering clergy, and he usually preached a funeral sermon on the 'Royal Martyrdom.' In 1660, being one of the ministers deputed to attend the commissioners for the city of London, he went over to the Hague to meet Charles II, and there preached a sermon which gave the king great satisfaction. On the king's return to England, he was made one of the royal chaplains in ordinary, and frequently preached in the Chapel Royal.
On 2 Aug. 1660 he was created D.D. of Hart Hall, Oxford; on 10 Aug. was made rector of St. Dionis, Backchurch, where he had long been preacher; and on 10 Dec. 1660 became dean of Rochester. In March 1661 he petitioned for the next vacant prebend at Westminster, but does not seem to have obtained it. On 6 April 1661 the king presented him to the vicarage of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. He was appointed to the living of Henley-on-Thames, 14 Nov. 1661, but resigned it after two months. In December 1661 he was among the clergy of the diocese of Canterbury who testified their conformity in convocation with the new Book of Common Prayer. He was installed archdeacon of Lewes, 6 April 1667. He also held the rectory of Leybourne in Kent for a short time. Hardy died at his house at Croydon, Surrey, after a brief illness, on 1 June 1670, and was buried on the 9th in the chancel of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Dr. Meggot, dean of Winchester, preached his funeral sermon. Wood speaks of a published funeral sermon by Dr. Symon Patrick (Athenæ, iii. 899), but no copy seems now known. Hardy's widow erected a marble tablet to his memory, now in the crypt of St. Martin's. She afterwards married (license dated 6 Dec. 1670) Sir Francis Clarke, knight, of Ulcombe, Kent (Reg. Vicar-general, Canterbury, Harl. Soc., p. 186).
In 1670 Hardy gave 50l. towards the rebuilding of St. Dionis, Backchurch, after its destruction by fire in 1666, and his widow, 'Dame Elizabeth Clark,' afterwards added 30l. for the pulpit, reading-desk, clerk's pew, &c. The new church—the first erected by Wren after the fire—was taken down in 1877, and the tablet commemorating his and other
