The Hon. Robert Gathorne-Hardy, FLS (31 July 1902 –11 February 1973) was a British prose writer, poet, botanist, and horticulturalist. He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. [1] Robert was the third of four sons of Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, 3rd Earl of Cranbrook. He was for forty years a resident of Stanford Dingley in Berkshire. In Oxford he co-founded the Uffizi Society alongside Anthony Eden and Lord David Cecil.
Although he also wrote fiction, including Lacebury Manor and Other Seas, and some bibliographical works, Gathorne-Hardy is best known for his books on plants that he researched while growing in the garden or about plants that he collected in different parts of the world. He called himself an amateur gardener, but in reality was no amateur. In 1960 he was made a Fellow of the Linnean Society. [2] Gathorne-Hardy wrote about his own garden, his mother's garden, and that of his illustrator John Nash, each having their own point of view, their own distinct possibilities, and as he often said, ". . . their own snubs to give." He also worked- alongside his elder brother Edward- as a director of the booksellers Elkin Mathews. [3]
Gathorne-Hardy's sister, Anne (1911-2006), was the wife of George Heywood Hill, owner of the Mayfair bookshop bearing his name. [4] A nephew - son of his younger brother Anthony - was Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy. [5]
Milton Abbey school is an independent school for day and boarding pupils in the village of Milton Abbas, near Blandford Forum in Dorset, in South West England. It has 224 pupils as of September 2023, in five houses: Athelstan, Damer, Hambro, Hodgkinson and Tregonwell. The school was founded in 1954 and is co-educational.
Garsington Manor, in the village of Garsington, near Oxford, England, is a country house, dating from the 17th century. Its fame derives principally from its owner in the early 20th century, the "legendary Ottoline Morrell, who held court from 1915 to 1924".
Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, 1st Earl of Cranbrook, was a prominent British Conservative politician. He held cabinet office in every Conservative government between 1858 and 1892. He served as Home Secretary from 1867 to 1868, Secretary of State for War from 1874 to 1878, Lord President of the Council from 1885 to 1886 and as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster until 1886. In 1878, he was appointed Secretary of State for India and thereafter was elevated to the peerage, entering the House of Lords as Viscount Cranbrook. He has been described as a moderate, middle-of-the-road Anglican, and a key ally of Disraeli.
Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy was a British author, known for biographies, including one of Alfred Kinsey, and books of social history on the British nanny and public school system. For his autobiography, Half an Arch, he received the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography in 2005. He also wrote novels and children's literature. He subsequently worked in advertising and publishing.
Logan Pearsall Smith was an American-born British essayist and critic. Harvard and Oxford educated, he was known for his aphorisms and epigrams, and was an expert on 17th century divines. His Words and Idioms made him an authority on correct English language usage. He wrote his autobiography, Unforgotten Years, in 1938.
Peter Charles Patrick Oswald is an English playwright specialising in verse drama, resident at Shakespeare's Globe from 1998 to 2009.
Julius Arthur Sheffield Neave CBE, JP, DL (Essex) was an English insurance executive.
John Stewart Gathorne-Hardy, 2nd Earl of Cranbrook, was a British hereditary peer, Conservative politician, and military officer.
Alfred Erskine Gathorne-Hardy, was a British Conservative politician, landowner, and writer.
Sir Charles Leolin Forestier-Walker, 1st Baronet, was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.
Captain The Honourable Norman de l'Aigle Grosvenor, was a British Liberal Party politician.
James Hewitt, 4th Viscount Lifford, DL, of Meenglass Castle, near Stranorlar in County Donegal, was Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Donegal.
RalphEdward Gathorne-Hardy was a British antiquarian, traveller and socialite.
James Caulfeild Browne, 2nd Baron Kilmaine was an Anglo-Irish Member of Parliament and landowner. He sat in the House of Commons of Ireland in 1790.
Hon. Elizabeth Ponsonby was an English aristocrat who was a prominent member of the Bright Young Things, well-connected socialites who featured heavily in the contemporary tabloid press for what were perceived to be their hedonistic antics.
Lady Anne Catherine Dorothy Hill was a British bookseller and writer.
Rosehip Myfanwy Nell Gathorne-Hardy, known as Moffy Gathorne-Hardy, is a model signed onto Storm Models, the same agency that hired supermodel Kate Moss. She is primarily known for her crossed eyes and as a representative of challenging fashion industry norms, although she has said "I find it hard to take credit for 'challenging' anything; although I suppose that is inadvertently what I have done".
Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, 5th Earl of Cranbrook,, styled Lord Medway until 1978, is a British zoologist, biologist, naturalist, and peer. Since 1956, he has been active in the fields of ornithology, mammalogy, and zooarchaeology, and has influenced research and education in Southeast Asia. His career focus was on swiftlets and other small Southeast Asian birds, as well as on mammals, including orangutans.
Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, 3rd Earl of Cranbrook, styled as Lord Medway between 1906 and 1911, was a British hereditary peer.
John David Gathorne-Hardy, 4th Earl of Cranbrook was a British hereditary peer and archaeologist.