Thomas Duffus Hardy

After his appointment as Deputy Keeper of the Record Office in 1861 Hardy edited, for the Rolls Series, A Descriptive Catalogue of MSS relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland (1862–71), the Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense (1873–1878), and a Syllabus in English of Rymer's Foedera (1869); and he also commenced for the same series Lestorie des Engles solum Geffrei Gaimar. Besides these works he made reports on the documents preserved at Venice relating to English history, and on the collection of papers at the Bodleian Library. Besides his work in connection with the public records, he contributed to the controversy concerning the probable date of the Athanasian Creed. He argued in favour of the antiquity and authenticity of the manuscript of the creed formerly among the Cotton manuscripts and now in Utrecht University. In 1843, he prepared, under the title of A Catalogue of the Lords Chancellors, Keepers of the Great Seal, &c., a useful list of various legal officials in successive periods of history, and in 1852 published the life of his friend and patron, Lord Langdale. He edited the Close Rolls, Rotuli litterarum clausarum, 1204–1227 (2 vols., 1833–1844), with an introduction entitled "A Description of the Close Rolls, with an Account of the early Courts of Law and Equity"; and the Patent Rolls, Rotuli litterarum patentium, 1201–1216 (1835), with introduction, "A Description of the Patent Rolls, to which is added an Itinerary of King John." He also edited the Rotuli de oblatis etfinibus (1835), which deal also with the time of King John; the Rotuli Normanniae, 1200–1205, and 1417–1418 (1835), containing letters and grants of the English kings concerning the duchy of Normandy; the Charter Rolls, Rotuli chartarum, 1199–1216 (1837), giving with this work an account of the structure of charters; the Liberate Rolls, Rotuli de liberate ac de misis et praestitis regnante Johanne (1844); and the Modus Tenendi Parliamentum, with a translation (1846). He wrote A Catalogue of Lords Chancellors, Keepers of the Great Seal, Masters of the Rolls and Officers of the Court of Chancery (1843); the preface to Henry Petrie's Monumenta historica Britannica (1848); and Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland (3 vols., 1862–1871). He edited William of Malmesbury's De gestis regum anglorum (2 vols., 1840); he continued and corrected John Le Neve's Fasti ecclesiae Anglicanae (3 vols., Oxford, 1854); and with Charles Trice Martin he edited and translated L'Estorie des Engles of Geoffrey Gaimar (1888–1889). He wrote Syllabus in English of Documents in Rymer's Foedera (3 vols., 1869–1885), and gave an account of the history of the public records from 1837 to 1851 in his Memoirs of the Life of Henry, Lord Langdale (1852). Hardy took part in the controversy about the date of the Athanasian Creed, writing The Athanasian Creed in connection with the Utrecht Psalter (1872); and Further Report on the Utrecht Psalter (1874).

Hardy was knighted in 1869.