Arthur Sturgis Hardy
Arthur Sturgis Hardy, c. 1900
4thPremier of Ontario
In office July 21, 1896 – October 21, 1899
Monarch	Victoria
Lieutenant Governor	George Airey Kirkpatrick Casimir Gzowski (acting) Oliver Mowat
Preceded by	Oliver Mowat
Succeeded by	George William Ross
Ontario MPP
In office 1873–1899
Preceded by	Edmund Burke Wood
Succeeded by	Thomas Hiram Preston
Constituency	Brant South
Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party
In office 1896–1899
Preceded by	Oliver Mowat
Succeeded by	George William Ross
Personal details
Born	(1837-12-14)December 14, 1837 Mount Pleasant,Upper Canada
Died	June 13, 1901(1901-06-13) (aged 63) Toronto, Ontario
Resting place	Greenwood Cemetery (original) Farringdon Burial Ground (current)
Political party	Liberal
Spouse	Mary Morrison
Signature

Arthur Sturgis Hardy,QC (December 14, 1837 – June 13, 1901) was a Canadian lawyer andLiberal politician who served as the fourthpremier of Ontario from 1896 to 1899.

Born in Mount Pleasant,Brant County, in 1837, Hardy was the son of Russell and Juletta (Sturgis) Hardy,United Empire Loyalists. He studied at theRockwood Academy inRockwood,Province of Canada, and he became town solicitor for Brantford in 1867, a bencher of theLaw Society of Upper Canada in 1875, and aQC in 1876. On January 19, 1870, he married Mary Morrison, daughter of JudgeJoseph Curran Morrison.

First elected to theLegislative Assembly of Ontario in 1873, he was promoted to theCabinet of SirOliver Mowat in 1877 asProvincial Secretary. In 1889, as Commissioner of Crown Lands, Hardy established theAlgonquin andRondeau provincial parks. Well known for his support of Mowat's liberalism, he was described inGrip as a hard-nosed and down-to-earth politician in Mowat's service:

The more wickeder he is, playing euchre and swearing and entertaining thirsty strangers, the brighter does the virtue of Mowat shine by contrast.

Entering his sixties and having been in government for over twenty years, Hardy lacked the energy and strength to take the government forward or excite the populace when he succeeded Mowat as both Premier andAttorney-General in 1896. Initially reluctant to accept the positions, he said:

you know how very difficult it is in this wicked world to let high honours pass.

Aware of his weakness, he relied heavily on his minister of education,George William Ross.

Because there were Liberal governments in both Ottawa and Ontario, Hardy was urged to reassure French-speaking Catholics' concerns over theManitoba Schools Question by appointingFrançois-Eugène-Alfred Évanturel as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. In the1898 election, Hardy's government was returned with a narrow six seat majority due to the collapse of the agrarianPatrons of Industry party which had served as the Liberal's allies in the legislature, as well as the rise of Catholic and urban support for the Conservatives underJames Pliny Whitney.

Hardy's most significant—and controversial—achievement occurred in 1898 with passage of an Act providing for all pine cut under licence on crown lands to be sawn into lumber in Canada.^[1] Michigan lumbermen sought to have the amendmentdisallowed for encroaching on the federaltrade and commerce power, butWilfrid Laurier's government refused to do so.^[2]

Exhausted and needing money, Hardy retired from politics in 1899 and died two years later from appendicitis.^[3] Hardy's body was originally interred at Greenwood Cemetery, however 34 years after his death, his sonSenatorArthur Charles Hardy had the remains of Hardy, his wife, and their daughter Gladys Mary Starr moved to Farringdon Burial Ground.^[4]

An Ontario Historical Plaque was erected inBrantford, Ontario, by the province to commemorate Hardy's role inOntario's history.^[5] On June 25, 2009, a new plaque was unveiled to commemorate Hardy under the initiative of Premiers' Gravesites Program.^[6] Local politicians, guests and family members paid tribute to the former politician. The family included his great-great-great-granddaughter and the children of his great-nephewHagood Hardy.

• George Maclean Rose, ed. (1886).A Cyclopedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time. Toronto: Rose Publishing Co. pp. 629–630.
• Ontario - Record of the Liberal Government: 26 Years of Progressive Legislation and Honest Administration, 1872–1898. Toronto: Ontario Liberal Association. 1898.
• Trevor, David Owen (1973).Arthur S. Hardy and Ontario politics, 1896–1899 (M.A.).University of Guelph. Archived fromthe original on December 19, 2013.

• Burley, David G. (1994)."Hardy, Arthur Sturgis". In Cook, Ramsay; Hamelin, Jean (eds.).Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. XIII (1901–1910) (online ed.).University of Toronto Press.
• Ontario Legislative Assembly parliamentary history
• Arthur Sturgis Hardy fonds, Archives of Ontario

• 1837 births
• 1901 deaths
• Premiers of Ontario
• Lawyers in Ontario
• Canadian King's Counsel
• Canadian Anglicans
• Leaders of the Ontario Liberal Party
• Attorneys general of Ontario
• Provincial secretaries of Ontario
• Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
• 19th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario

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