Cranbrook

Cranbrook, GATHORNE GATHORNE-HARDY, EARL (1892), was born 1st October 1814, at Bradford, the son of John Hardy, Esq., of Dunstall Hall, Staffordshire. Educated at Shrewsbury and at Ariel College, Oxford, where he took his B.A. in 1837, he was called to the bar in 1840, and in 1856, after unsuccessfully contesting Bradford nine years earlier, was returned as a Conservative by Leominster. In 1865 he defeated Mr Gladstone in the celebrated Oxford University election; in 1878 he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Cranbrook. He was Undersecretary of State for the Home Department (1858–59), President of the Poor-law Board (1866–67), Home Secretary (1867–68), War Secretary (1874–78), Secretary of State for India (1878–80), and Lord President of the Council (1885–92).