Name
Adrian Thomas Hardman
1890
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
30/03/1916
25
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lieutenant
London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers)
4th (City of London) Bn
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LIJSSENTHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY
V A 11
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
A TALENTED ARCHITECT AND BRAVE SOLDIER WITH GOD
UK & Other Memorials
Northaw Village Memorial,
St Andrew's Church Individual Plaque - A T Hardman (lost),
Not on the Potters Bar memorials
Pre War
Adrian Thomas Hardman was born in 1890 in Potters Bar, Herts to Thomas and Emma Hardman. On the 1891 Census, when Adrian was 8 months old, the family were living at Cotton Road, South Mimms, Herts and his father was a Clerk to the Clerkenwell County Court. His mother was said to be an artist. By the 1901 Census the family were living at Brick Kiln Farm Cottages in Northaw, Herts and his father’s occupation is given as artist/painter.
He was educated at Christ’s Hospital School, (probably Hertford), leaving when he was 15, and later in Paris where he was preparing to study at Ecole des Beaux Arts. In 1911 the family were living at Eastcot in Northaw. His parents were painter/artists and he was an Architectural student at The Royal British Institute of Architects. He studied in both London and in Paris where he was intending to enter the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
Wartime Service
He initially enlisted as a Corporal reg. no. 1702. He attended Officers Training Corps and was Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers in February 1915 and went to France on 8th February 1916. On 27th March the same year he was wounded at the Battle of St. Eloi and subsequently died from his injuries.
Extract from www.1914-1918.net: “At 4.15am the mines blew within a few seconds of each other and the artillery barrage joined in. The infantry barely waited the planned 30 seconds to get going. On the right the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers reached the German wire with the loss of only a single soldier; the 4th Royal Fusiliers were however hit by machine gun fire as they went over the top. German artillery responded very quickly: less than a minute after the last of the Northumberlands left the front line, shellfire began to fall on the British trenches, no man’s land and the new craters. As the depleted Royal Fusiliers advanced into the inferno, they quickly became disorientated as the ground had changed so much – and visibility also so poor – that they simply could not tell whether they were in a crater or an old German trench.”
Additional Information
His father Thomas Hardman received a war gratuity £5 and pay owing of £78 5s 5d.
His mother, Mrs E L Hardman, Eastcote, Northaw, Nr Potters Bar, ordered his headstone inscription: "A TALENTED ARCHITECT AND BRAVE SOLDIER WITH GOD".
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
www.1914-1918.net, www.lijssenthoek.be, Brian Lodge, www.chwarmemorial.org.uk
