Biographical dictionary

Born at Bilsdean, East Lothian, on the Berwickshire border, the son of George and Elizabeth Hardy, farmers. In 1817 his parents moved a few miles away to Penmanshiel where James attended the village school. Later he moved to Sir Andrew Wood's Institution at Largo before going firstly to Edinburgh University and then to Glasgow University where he studied the natural sciences between 1837-39. He doesn't appear to have taken a degree at either, although he was subsequently awarded a doctorate by Edinburgh (in 1890) in recognition of his services to science. In 1840 he set up as a teacher in a private academy in Gateshead, where he stayed for several years before returning to Penmanshiel as a result of ill health. Hardy's interest in natural history was stimulated by Sir William Hooker, and also Dr George Johnston, the founder of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, with which Hardy himself was subsequently much involved as Secretary. In June 1881 his work for the Club was acknowledged by the gift of a cheque for £111 and a microscope, and in 1890 he received a further cheque for £400 and an illuminated address.

Hardy's work on Coleoptera started at least as early as 1834 when he published a 'List of the Coleopterous Insects collected in the neighbourhood of the Pease Bridge' in Hist. Berwicksh. Nat. Club, 1834, pp.228-229. Numerous other articles then followed on a wide range of subjects which were interspersed with further notes on beetles, not just in this periodical but also in Ann. Mag. nat. Hist. and Trans. Tyneside Nat. Field Club. At an early date Hardy started an Association of Tyneside entomologists called the Wallis Society which met in his house. T.J.Bold was also a member and together the two men wrote their Catalogue of the Insects of Northumberland and Durham, 1846-52, which covered Coleoptera only (see p.59). Shortly afterwards Hardy contributed to Murray's Catalogue of the Coleoptera of Scotland, 1853, and published the first of several important notes on the Turnip beetle and other insects injurious to turnips.

Hardy died at his home and is buried in the Priory Church at Coldingham. There are obituaries in Hist. Berwicksh. Nat. Club, 16, 1898, pp.341-372, which includes a complete bibliography; Ann. Scott. nat. Hist., 1899, pp.1-6; and EMM. 35, 1898, pp.16-17. An article about Hardy's entomological notebooks by E.B.Basden, appeared in the Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 4, 1962, pp.44-47. Pedewrson (2002) p.54 records correspondence dated 32 July and 14 August 1845 ion the RERSL. (MD 3/03, 11/09)

Born in Nether Hallam, Yorkshire, and moved to Manchester when still a child. He was for a time in charge of the Manchester Marine Aquarium, and after that Keeper of the Queen's Park Museum. When the collections of the Manchester Natural History Society and the Manchester Geological Society were transferred to Owen's College he left Queen's Park to look after them, being appointed Assisant Keeper in 1889 (after the collections moved into their new buildings in 1888 as the Manchester Museum) and then Senior Assistant Keeper and Entomological Curator in 1901, a position he held until his retirement in 1918.

Hardy's father, John, was a keen naturalist and undoubtedly fired the early enthusiasm of his son in entomology, particularly Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. According to R. Standen in his obituary in Lancashire and Cheshire Naturalist, 13, May 1921, pp.219-223, Hardy's 'prowess and singular aptitude for collecting brought him under the notice of several prominent entomologists, by whom he was from time to time commissioned to collect specimens... In this capacity he collected extensively in Lancashire and adjoining counties, the Lincolnshire Fens, and Ireland and Scotland, on several occasions spending six months in a season at Killarney, or Rannock, and obtained many rarities - not a few being additions to the British fauna'. Sherwood Forest was also a favourite haunt and he published a list of the butterflies there. But Johnson (2004) throws particular doubt on his reputed capture of Litargus coloratus there and says of his collection ‘most locality data... is very unreliable... Specimens are/were kept in small glass-topped circular pill boxes and printed locality labels placed inside next to the specimens; these pill boxes may also have similar or different data handwritten underneath...It is quite common to find numbers of chalk land species of south eastern England labelled as being ‘shaken out of refuse, Mersey Banks’ as well as many Scottish pine forest species labelled Sherwood! Some card mounts are recognisable as having come from several separate collectors (Broadhurst, Reston and others), but this is either not acknowledged or erroneous information is given. Hardy’s old records, even when published, should not be uncritically accepted...’ In 1872 Standen records that Hardy went to America 'to collect Coleoptera, etc. on behalf of several gentlemen'. He started in San Fracisco where he teamed up with a collector of bird skins named Laquien, and collected extensively in California and Mexico, visiting the Yosemite Valley. After this he undertook another long journey through Colarado, Arizona and Utah, narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Apache Indians, before returnig to England in 1874. The find of which Hardy was apparently most proud was of Pryopteris affinis (now nigroruber) in Killarney and later Sherwood, at that time the only two locations for it. Standen also records that although Hardy was a keen conchologist, ornithologist, taxidermist and osteologist, 'beetles were first and always his chief favourites, and a group in which he made many important discoveries. It was unfortunate that these discoveries should, in many cases through his reluctance to place them on record, fall to the credit of others who subsequently published them'.

Hardy added Mycetophagus fulvicollis to the British list from the the saw mill at Dall, Rannoch in June 1865 (Fowler, 1889, 354). His collection amounting to some 16,000 specimens was passed by Mrs Minshull to the Manchester Museum on 28 March 1953. There are also Hardy specimens in the Britten collection at Manchester and in the collection at Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, which were exchanged with Manchester on 13 April 1976. Hardy married Mary Eglin Hall, great grand-daughter of Elias Hall, the well known geologist. Apart from the obituary quoted above Gilbert (1977) mentions one by H. Britten in Rep. Trans. Manchester ent. Soc., 19, 1922, pp.71-72. (MD 3/03, 2/20)