Charles Hardy (Royal Navy officer, died 1744)
English politician and admiral in the Royal Navy
Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Hardy (c.1680 – 27 November 1744), also known as Charles Hardy the Elder, was a Royal Navy officer of the eighteenth century. Hardy entered the Royal Navy in 1695, joining his cousin Captain Thomas Hardy's ship HMS Pendennis. Promoted to lieutenant in 1701, he served in several ships of the line before being promoted to commander in 1705. Hardy commanded sloops in the English Channel, Mediterranean and North Seas, before taking command of HMS Dunwich in 1709, in which he was promoted to post captain. Hardy subsequently served for a year at Jamaica before commanding two ships during the Great Northern War between 1718 and 1720. Having changed commands several times, in 1727 he fought at the thirteenth siege of Gibraltar in HMS Kent.
Hardy commanded the royal yacht HMY Carolina between 1730 and 1742, being knighted in 1732. In 1742 he was promoted to rear-admiral, advancing to vice-admiral in December 1743. Also in that month he became a Lord of the Admiralty, Member of Parliament for Portsmouth, and second-in-command of the Channel Fleet. In the Channel Fleet Hardy participated in the manoeuvres that halted the planned French invasion of Britain, and at the start of King George's War was sent with a squadron to escort transports to the Mediterranean Fleet.
“Charles Hardy (Royal Navy officer, died 1744)” enters the record as english politician and admiral in the Royal Navy. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Charles, Hardy and Royal can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18563003. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1680, 1744, 1695 and 1701.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles Hardy (Royal Navy officer, died 1744)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.