Mary Hardy (diarist)

Mary Hardy
Hardy in 1785 aged 51, by Huquier (Cozens-Hardy Collection)
Born	Mary Raven (1733-11-12)12 November 1733 Whissonsett, East Dereham, Norfolk, England
Died	23 March 1809(1809-03-23) (aged 75) Letheringsett, Holt, Norfolk, England
Nationality	English
Occupation	Brewer's wife (married Whissonsett 22 December 1765)
Known for	Diarist
Spouse(s)	William Hardy (1732–1811), farmer and wholesale brewer
Children	Raven Hardy (1767–1787) William Hardy (1770–1842) Mary Ann Cozens, née Hardy (1773–1864)
Parent(s)	Robert Raven and Mary, née Fox
Relatives	Herbert Hardy Cozens-Hardy, 1st Baron Cozens-Hardy, Master of the Rolls William H. Cozens-Hardy, 2nd Baron Cozens-Hardy

Mary Hardy (née Raven; 12 November 1733 – 23 March 1809) was an 18th-century English diarist. She depicts commercial and working life in the countryside, being actively engaged in her husband's farming and brewing business. Her 500,000-word record, compiled daily from 1773 to 1809, reveals the exacting, time-pressured nature of pre-mechanised work for the middle and labouring classes.

Mary Hardy spent nearly half her life in the small village of Whissonsett, in central Norfolk, where her father Robert Raven was a grocer, maltster and later a farmer. She came from a long line of village shopkeepers, manufacturers and farmers in Norfolk, the county from which she never moved.

Maltsters, like brewers, were monitored by the Excise and had to adhere strictly to procedures and timings set by legislation. Living beside her family’s small malthouse may have trained the young Mary Raven in the time-awareness and methodical work patterns seen later in her diary. Her meticulous recording lifts her from the obscurity in which she and her extended circle lived and gives insight into the forces to which they were exposed.

Her husband William Hardy was born on 26 January 1732 at Scotton, near Knaresborough, in the West Riding of Yorkshire; he died 18 August 1811 at his daughter's farmhouse at Sprowston, near Norwich, Norfolk. He probably met his future wife while posted to East Dereham, a few miles from Whissonsett, during his years as an excise officer 1757–69. His official duties brought him into contact with maltsters, brewers, tanners and other rural manufacturers; his wife seems to have been most at ease with this "middling-sort" class, and they had few gentry friends.

Mary and William Hardy married in Whissonsett Church in 1765 when they were aged 32 and 33, and set up home at East Dereham. Their first child, named Raven for his mother, was born there 9 November 1767. Their second son, William, was born on 1 April 1770 at Litcham, in central Norfolk, where his father had been posted. The last child, Mary Ann, was born at Coltishall, seven miles (11 km) north-east of Norwich, on 3 November 1773; by then William Hardy was tenant of a 60-acre (24 ha) farm and manager of a commercial maltings and brewery.