Frederick Hardy
Frederick Hardy was born at Puddletown, in Dorset, and baptised there on 11 June 1837. He was the son of James Hardy, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Mary Legg. Piddletown is the old spelling of the village. He is in his father's house there in 1841, aged three, at Narrow Brook. In 1851 he was thirteen and already working on the land like his father.
He joined the Royal Marines, the Navy's own soldiers. Devonport and Plymouth were the home of their Plymouth Division. On 20 February 1860 he married Eliza Congdon at the parish church of East Stonehouse, the Plymouth parish where the Marines had their barracks. The register calls him a bachelor of full age, a Private R.M., living aboard H.M.S. Conqueror. It gives his father as James Hardy, labourer. Eliza was of full age too, living at 12 George Street, and her father was Richard Congdon, a cabinet maker. They married after banns. Eliza signed her name, and Frederick made his mark.
At the census of April 1861 he was still aboard HMS Conqueror, a ship of ninety-nine guns lying at Devonport: a married private of twenty-four, born at Piddletown, Dorset. Their first son, Frederick James, was born at Plymouth on 20 February 1863, three years to the day after the wedding.
That autumn a small detachment of Marines was sent to garrison the Falkland Islands under Lieutenant G. H. Elliott: a lieutenant, a sergeant, a corporal and eighteen privates. A military detachment was thought necessary, the official file says, because soldiers were "indispensable on account of the large resort of British and Foreign Merchantmen, and Whalers, and of the necessity of having some force to maintain order amongst them and to secure respect for the laws of the Colony." The men drew their ordinary pay and rations, and two shillings a day more whenever the colony used them as labourers.
The detachment left the Thames in the freight ship Velocidade on 29 October 1863. Twenty men sailed with six wives and eight children. The ship reached Stanley on 8 January 1864 after sixty-three days at sea. Frederick arrived in the islands that year, and he almost certainly came with them. By 1868 the detachment had eight wooden cottages, a barrack room and a new row of ten stone cottages.
His children's baptisms at Holy Trinity, Stanley, call him a private in the 31st Company of Royal Marines in 1865, 1866 and 1869, and a private of the Royal Marine Light Infantry in 1867. Louisa Ann was born in October 1864, William Richard in December 1865 and Mary Margaret in March 1867. Albertina was born on Christmas Eve 1868 and baptised on 1 February 1869.
About 1870 the family went home to Plymouth, where Arthur was born on 21 October 1870. Then they sailed back. Louisa Ann died at sea on 25 January 1871, on the voyage out to the islands. She was six. She was buried at Stanley on 5 February, and the register gives her age as seven.
After that he stayed. From 1872 the baptism entries give his trade as bricklayer, and in some years as mason. Frank was born in 1872, George in 1874 and Walter in 1875. Louisa Malvina, the second daughter to carry the name, was born on 7 May 1877. Albert Percy followed in 1879 and Herbert Ambrose in 1882, the last of twelve.
Eliza died at Stanley on 19 September 1889, aged forty-seven, after a stroke, and was buried in grave E441 of Stanley Cemetery. Five years later, on 22 November 1894, Louisa Malvina married the master mariner Olav Aslachsen at the Baptist Tabernacle in Stanley. The register gives her father as Fred. Hardy, bricklayer, and he signed as a witness with his son Frank.
About 1901 he moved to Punta Arenas, the Chilean port on the Strait of Magellan, where three of his sons and a daughter settled. He died there on 3 November 1916, aged seventy-eight. The Magellan Times printed his obituary six days later: "Early in the morning of Friday last, Mr. Fred Hardy, father of Messrs. Walter, George and Herbert Hardy and Mrs. John Skirving, died at the ripe old age of eighty years. The deceased was a native of Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, where he passed the greater part of his life, but some fifteen years ago he came to Punta Arenas and has resided here ever since. For some time past he had been in failing health and on the date mentioned he painlessly passed away. The funeral took place on Saturday at 10.30 and was attended by a large number of acquaintances." He was buried in the municipal cemetery of Punta Arenas, and his son Herbert was later laid next to him.
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Cite: Heirology, "Frederick Hardy (1837-1916)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/frederick-hardy-1837-1916-69044e.