Alexander Hardinge, 2nd Baron Hardinge of Penshurst

Who was Alexander Hardinge, 2nd Baron Hardinge of Penshurst?

Alexander Henry Louis Hardinge, 2nd Baron Hardinge of Penshurst GCB GCVO MC PC was Private Secretary to the Sovereign during the Abdication Crisis of Edward VIII and during most of the Second World War.

Hardinge was born in 1894, the son of The Hon. Charles Hardinge. He was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards and fought in the First World War, alongside his brother, rising to the rank of Lieutenant and winning the Military Cross. In 1920, he became Assistant Private Secretary to King George V and was promoted Captain. On 8 February 1921, he married Helen Gascoyne-Cecil and they had three children. In 1929 he was promoted Major.

Hardinge served as Assistant Private Secretary up until the King's death in 1936 and was promoted to Private Secretary upon the accession of King Edward VIII that same year; he continued in this role until his early retirement in 1943. In 1936 he also retired from the Army. Hardinge's elder brother, Edward, had died from wounds received in action in 1914 and so Hardinge succeeded as Baron Hardinge of Penshurst, on the demise of his father a year later, in 1944. Hardinge died in 1960 and his title was inherited by his son, George.