Hardwick, Charles

Hardwick, Charles a minister of the Church of England, was born at Slingsby, Yorkshire, September 22, 1821. At fifteen years of age he became pupil assistant teacher in Thornton Grammar-school, and in 1838 he was made assistant tutor in the academy at Malton. In 1840 he entered the University of Cambridge (Catharine's Hall), graduating in 1844 as first senior optime. In 1845 he obtained a fellowship in Catharine's Hall; in 1851 he was appointed Cambridge preacher at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall; and in 1853, professor of divinity in Queen's College, Birmingham, which office he held only for a few months. In 1855 he was made lecturer in divinity in King's College, Cambridge, and "Christian Advocate." In fulfilling the latter office, he prepared a work (incomplete, but yet of great value to the new science of Comparative Theology), under the title Christ and other Masters; an Historical Inquiry into some of the chief Parallelisms and Contrasts between Christianity and the Religious Systems of the Ancient World (London and Cambridge, 2nd edit. 1853, 2 vols. fop. 8vo).

During a summer tour he was killed by a fall in the Pyrenees, Aug. 18, 1859. His literary activity was very great, and it was accompanied by thorough scholarship and accuracy. Besides editing a number of works for the University press and for the Percy Society, he published the following, which are likely to-hold a durable place in theological literature, viz., A History of the Thirty-nine Articles (Cambridge, 1851; 2nd ed. revised. 1859: reprinted in Philadelphia, 12mo): — Twenty Sermons of Town Congregations (1853, cr. 8vo): — A History of the Christian Church, Middle Age (Cambridge, 1853, fcp. 8vo): — A History of the Christian Church during the Reformation (Cambridge, 1856, fop. 8vo). — Sketch prefixed to second edition of Christ and other Masters (1863).