Place Name
It has been suggested that this may be a corruption of Samuel Hardin, the farmer of many Woolwich fields up to 1810, which were inherited by his son-law John Shersby. But given its location so close to Wellington Park (and the names of other famous British generals nearby) on the former Plumstead Marshes, which formed part of the grounds of the Royal Arsenal, a more likely contender is Henry Hardinge (March 30, 1785 – September 24, 1856), 1st Viscount Hardinge, an army general and politician, who served with the Duke of Wellington on both the battlefield and the House of Commons. After seeing action in the Peninsular Wars, he left the army, returning when Napoleon escaped from Elba in 1815. However, he lost his left hand by a shot at the Battle of Ligny on June 16, 1815, and so was not present at Waterloo two days later. Wellington presented him with a sword that had belonged to Napoleon. At the 1820 general election, he was returned to parliament as member for Durham and three years later appointed Clerk of the Ordnance, a post he held until May 1827. In 1828 he was made Secretary at War in Wellington’s Cabinet. After stepping down from his political career, he served for a time as as Governor-General of India, taking an active role in the first Sikh War. He returned to England in 1848, and became Master-General of the Ordnance on March 5, 1852 and a few months later succeeded the Duke of Wellington as commander-in-chief of the British Army. During his time he had responsibility for the direction of the Crimean War, which he endeavoured to conduct on Wellington’s principles — a system not altogether suited to the changed mode of warfare. A commission was set up to investigate the failings of the British military during the Crimean campaign. As Hardinge was delivering the report of the commission to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, he collapsed with a stroke. Albert helped him to a sofa, where despite being paralysed on one side, he continued to deliver his report, apologising for the interruption. He died a few months later.
