Thomas Duffus Hardy
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy (22 May 1804 – 15 June 1878) was an English
Life
Hardy was the third son of Major Thomas Bartholomew Price Hardy, from a naval family, and the older brother of William Hardy who had a parallel career as archivist. He was born on 22 May 1804 at Port Royal in Jamaica, and came to England in 1811. He entered the government service on 1 January 1819, obtaining on that date, through the influence of his uncle's brother, Samuel Lysons, a junior clerkship in the branch Record Office at the Tower of London; it was, however, from Henry Petrie (who soon after this succeeded Lysons at the Tower) that he received his education as an archivist. On Petrie's retirement, the compilation of the Monumenta Historica, published in 1848, was entrusted to him, and to this work he wrote the General Introduction.[1]
While at the Tower he also edited several publications of the
His proficiency in
Honours
Hardy was knighted in 1869.[1]
Personal life
Hardy was married twice: first to Frances, daughter of Captain Charles Andrews; and second to Mary Anne, daughter of Charles MacDowell. His daughter Iza Duffus Hardy (1850–1922) was also a writer. He died on 15 June 1878.[1]
Publications
After his appointment as Deputy Keeper of the Record Office in 1861 Hardy edited, for the Rolls Series, A Descriptive Catalogue of MSS relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland (1862–71), the Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense (1873–1878), and a Syllabus in English of Rymer's Foedera (1869); and he also commenced for the same series Lestorie des Engles solum Geffrei Gaimar. Besides these works he made reports on the documents preserved at Venice relating to English history, and on the collection of papers at the Bodleian Library.
Besides his work in connection with the public records, he contributed to the controversy concerning the probable date of the Athanasian Creed. He argued in favour of the antiquity and authenticity of the manuscript of the creed formerly among the Cotton manuscripts and now in Utrecht University. In 1843, he prepared, under the title of A Catalogue of the Lords Chancellors, Keepers of the Great Seal, &c., a useful list of various legal officials in successive periods of history, and in 1852 published the life of his friend and patron, Lord Langdale.[1]
He edited the Close Rolls, Rotuli litterarum clausarum, 1204–1227 (2 vols., 1833–1844), with an introduction entitled "A Description of the Close Rolls, with an Account of the early Courts of Law and Equity"; and the
He wrote A Catalogue of Lords Chancellors, Keepers of the Great Seal, Masters of the Rolls and Officers of the Court of Chancery (1843); the preface to Henry Petrie's Monumenta historica Britannica (1848); and Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland (3 vols., 1862–1871).
He edited William of Malmesbury's De gestis regum anglorum (2 vols., 1840); he continued and corrected John Le Neve's Fasti ecclesiae Anglicanae (3 vols., Oxford, 1854); and with Charles Trice Martin he edited and translated L'Estorie des Engles of Geoffrey Gaimar (1888–1889). He wrote Syllabus in English of Documents in Rymer's Foedera (3 vols., 1869–1885), and gave an account of the history of the public records from 1837 to 1851 in his Memoirs of the Life of Henry, Lord Langdale (1852). Hardy took part in the controversy about the date of the Athanasian Creed, writing The Athanasian Creed in connection with the Utrecht Psalter (1872); and Further Report on the Utrecht Psalter (1874).
References
- Attribution
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Hardy, William John (1890). "Hardy, Thomas Duffus". In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney (eds.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 24. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hardy, Sir Thomas Duffus". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 947. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the