Harold Croft Hardy died on 8th of February, 1957, at Fort Victoria, Southern Rhodesia, at the age of 74.
Mr. Hardy was educated at Battersea Grammar School and Dulwich College and began training with a London firm of surveyors and estate agents. He was a student at the Camborne School of Metalliferous Mining from 1905 to 1906, leaving to work underground at Levant mine, and gaining practical experience during 1907, when he also took a short course of assaying at the Penzance School of Mines.
Mr. Hardy left for South Africa in 1908 and until 1910 was employed by East Rand Proprietary Mines, Ltd. He joined Rhodesia Exploration and Development Co., Ltd., as assistant to the consulting engineer in Bulawayo, and examined and reported on properties in Southern Rhodesia, and managed the Hanover mine for a short time. He left to join H.M. Forces and served in France during the first world war.
Mr. Hardy was mine surveyor at the Nil Desperandum mine, Shabani, for about three years, and in 1932 acted as mine manager at the Croft mine, Filabusi. He was then a member of the Bushman Mining Syndicate and examined a number of abandoned gold mines, as a result of which the Syndicate acquired the mine at Essexvale, which Mr. Hardy operated as manager from 1933 to 1934. He joined African Associated Mines, Ltd., in July, 1934, and examined and reported on derelict mines in Southern Rhodesia. For a short time he was in Government service, directing prospecting work and examining the possibilities of dormant gold mines, but later became particularly concerned with properties, and in 1938 visited Kenya and Tanganyika.
During the 1939-1945 war he served as pilot officer in the Southern Air Force, and afterwards made professional visits to India, Australia and Egypt. Mr. Hardy was appointed a director of Bushtick Mines (1934), Ltd., in 1943 remained on the board until 1954. He was also a director of the Kilmarnock asbestos mine at Mashaba.
Mr. Hardy was elected a Student of the Institution in 1907, and was transferred to Associate Membership in 1913.
Vol. 67, Trans IMM 1957-58, pp.495-96
