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)