Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hart, Henry George
HART, HENRY GEORGE (1808–1878), lieutenant-general, author, editor, and proprietor of 'Hart's Army List,' belonged to the old Dorsetshire family of Hart of Netherbury. His father, Lieutenant-colonel William Hart (who served in the royal navy, Dorsetshire militia, 111th foot, &c.), went out to the Cape in 1819, and died there in 1848. Henry George, the third son, born on 7 Sept. 1808, accompanied his father to the Cape, and was on 1 April 1829 appointed ensign in the 49th foot, then stationed in the colony. His regimental service was passed in the 49th. His subsequent commissions were: lieutenant, 19 July 1832; captain, 1 Dec. 1842; major, 15 Dec. 1848; lieutenant-colonel, 30 May 1856; colonel, 27 Dec. 1860; major-general, 6 March 1868, and lieutenant-general, 4 Dec. 1877.
On joining the service Hart was remarkable for the assiduity with which he applied himself to his profession and his thirst for military information. At that period, except in the volumes of Philippart's 'Royal Military Calendar' of 1820, then some time out of print, there was no collective account, official or otherwise, of the war services of distinguished officers. Hart laboriously compiled for his own information a large number of these services from military histories and other sources. Very meagre information was then afforded by the official army lists. Hart gradually added to his own interleaved copies until, while yet a subaltern, he had accumulated so large a mass of information as to suggest the publication of an army list of his own. Aided greatly by his wife in his literary labours, Hart, in February 1839, having obtained the approval of the military authorities, published the first edition of his ‘Quarterly Army List.’ It was at once favourably received by the queen and the Duke of Wellington, and other high authorities. Hart was allowed access to the official records of officers' services, and in 1840 published his first ‘Annual Army List,’ containing supplementary information of interest, in addition to the contents of the ‘Quarterly.’ He also projected a military biographical dictionary, specimen pages of which he issued, but never found time to carry out the work. From the first appearance of ‘Hart's Army List’ to the present day the annual and quarterly volumes have regularly appeared. The original form has never been altered, although the book has gone through two hundred editions.
Hart never allowed his literary avocations to interfere with his professional work, and was an admirable regimental officer. He rendered valuable services as a poor law inspector in Ireland during the famine of 1845–6. In 1856, when in temporary command of the depôt battalion at Templemore, by his masterly movements he suppressed a dangerous mutiny of the North Tipperary militia with very little bloodshed, and saved the town of Nenagh from pillage.
Hart married in 1833 Alicia, daughter of the Rev. Holt Okes, D.D., by whom he left a family, including three sons, who all served in the army: General A. Fitzroy Hart, C.B., 1st battalion East Surrey regiment (the present editor of ‘Hart's Army List’), Colonel Reginald Clare Hart, V.C., royal engineers, and Major Horatio Holt Hart, royal engineers. Hart died at Biarritz on 24 March 1878.
[Burke's Landed Gentry, 1886 ed.; Army Lists; Brit. Mus. Cat. Printed Books; information supplied by Colonel Hart, C.B., 1st East Surrey Regiment.]