HARDWICKE, PHILIP YORKE, I ST EARL OF (169o 1764), English lord chancellor, was born at Dover on Dec. 1, 169o, the son of Philip Yorke, an attorney. Called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1715, he afterwards joined Lincoln's Inn, of which he was bencher and treasurer in 1724. He sat in parliament for Lewes 1719 and Seaford 17 2 2-34 ; was solicitor general (172o), attorney general (1723), lord chief justice and baron Hardwicke , lord chancellor (1737). For many years from 1743 onwards Lord Chancellor Hardwicke held the controlling power in the Government. During the king's absences on the Continent he presided over the council of regency, and he had to cope with the Jacobite rising of 1745. After Culloden he presided at the trial of the Scottish Jacobite peers. He carried out the great reform of 1746, which swept away the private heritable jurisdictions of the Scottish landed gentry; among his other great legal services was the reform of the English marriage laws.
Hardwicke, who was created earl in 17 54, retired with Newcastle in Nov. 1756, but he helped to secure the coalition between New castle and Pitt in 1757. He died in London on March 6, 1764.
Hardwicke was not a statesman of the first rank, but he was one of the greatest judges who ever sat on the English bench. Lord Campbell pronounces him "the most consummate judge who ever sat in the court of chancery, being distinguished not only for his rapid and satisfactory decision of the causes which came before him, but for the profound and enlightened principles which he laid down, and for perfecting English equity into a systematic science." He held the office of lord chancellor longer than any of his predecessors, with a single exception; and Campbell asserts that as an equity judge Hardwicke's fame "has not been exceeded by that of any man in ancient or modern times. His decisions have been, and ever will continue to be, appealed to as fixing the limits and establishing the principles of the great juridical system called Equity, which now not only in this country and in our colonies, but over the whole extent of the United States of America, regulates property and personal rights more than the ancient common law." Hardwicke had prepared himself for this great and enduring service to English jurisprudence by study of the historical foundations of the chancellor's equitable jurisdic tion, combined with profound insight into legal principle, and a thorough knowledge of the Roman civil law, the principles of which he scientifically incorporated into his administration of English equity in the absence of precedents bearing on the causes submitted to his judgment.
Nor was the creation of modern English equity Lord Hard wicke's only service to the administration of justice. Born within two years of the death of Judge Jeffreys, his influence was power ful in obliterating the evil traditions of the judicial bench under the Stuart monarchy and in establishing the modern conception of the duties and demeanour of English judges.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The contemporary authorities for the life of Lord Bibliography.—The contemporary authorities for the life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke are voluminous, being contained in the memoirs of the period and in numerous collections of correspondence in the British Museum. See, especially, the Hardwicke Papers; the Stowe MSS.; Hist. MSS. Commission (Reports 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, I I) ; Horace Walpole, Letters (ed. by P. Cunningham, 9 vols., London, Letters to Sir H. Mann (ed. by Lord Dover, 4 vols., London, 44)• See also Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. v. (8 vols., London, 1845) ; Edward Foss, The Judges of England, vols. vii. and viii. (g vols. London, 1848-64) ; George Harris, Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke; with Selections from his Correspondence, Diaries, Speeches and Judgments (3 vols., London, 1847) .