Edward Hardcastle (priest)
Edward Hoare Hardcastle was an Anglican clergyman in the first half of the 20th century.
Son of Conservative politician Edward Hardcastle, Harcastle was educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge and ordained in 1887. After a curacy at St George’s Ramsgate he was Vicar of Weston, Bath. From 1901 to 1904 he was Rector of St Martin's Church, Canterbury. During this time he married the Hon Alice Goschen, second daughter of the 1st Viscount Goschen. He was subsequently Vicar of Maidstone. In 1924 he was appointed Archdeacon of Canterbury, a post he held until 1939.
Hardcastle was a keen sportsman who played in two first-class cricket matches for Kent County Cricket Club in 1883 and 1884. He had played cricket at school and played for a number of other teams in non-first-class matches, including MCC, Worcestershire and Free Foresters as a left-arm fast bowler.
He died at Brighton in 1945 aged 83. His daughter, Monica Alice Hardcastle, was assistant advisor in religious education for the Diocese of Chichester from 1931 to 1948 and then Principal of St Christopher’s College, Blackheath until her retirement in 1963.
