John Hardwick (44-48) died peacefully on February 16, 2021 aged 90. He had been living in a care home in Bradford-on-Avon having endured dementia for a few years. He left two sons and a daughter. His wife Elise died in 2020. His youngest son, Dr. Richard Hardwick, provided the detail on which this obituary is based.

At the Nautical College, John was a born leader. Despite being the goalkeeper, he captained the 1^st X1 hockey team ably in 1947 with The Log stating: “A team of real triers…Hardwick has been conspicuous. He has been cheerful always, and as a captain has not been afraid to drive his team when necessary.” In the 1947 rugby 1^st XV he was described as a “hard-working forward” playing in the second row and gaining his colours. In Summer Term 1948, when Chief of the College, he was awarded The King’s Gold Medal which was presented to him by Air Marshall Sir Albert Durston.

From the NCP, Hardwick entered the Royal Navy, eventually becoming at Lt. Commander, serving in eleven ships and being present at medal theatre operations at Suez in 1956 and in Singapore/Malaysia and Aden. In 1966, following a government defence white paper which heralded major cutbacks to the RN, he left the Navy with some regret and began a long career in industry, eventually rising to become Group Personnel Director at Avon Rubber. One of his achievements was to work with the trade unions to keep open a South Wales factory making inflatable dinghies during a period of industrial unrest.

In parallel with his job at Avon Rubber, Hardwick became Chairman of the Rubber Industry Safety Committee, part of the Manpower Services Commission. In 1987 he was awarded an MBE for this work which involved compensatory claims made by workers in the rubber industry who developed bladder cancer as a consequence of exposure to beta naphthylamine, a chemical used in rubber production.

Beyond his job in the rubber industry, John had a long association with the Magistry and the Bath Bench. This culminated in the 1990s with the chairmanship of the Avon Magistrates Courts Committee. On retiring from Avon Rubber in 1994, he also set up an outplacement consultancy which specialised in tutoring ex-service officers to win jobs in industry. He continued with this work until 1998 and then began to scale back his many professional and voluntary activities.

“Messing about in boats” remained his favourite hobby despite his wife hating sailing. At one time he crewed a Sigma 33 racing yacht in the Solent owned by a friend and later himself owned a Drascombe lugger which he kept moored in Salcombe. For a time, he was also involved with the Kennet & Avon Canal Restoration Trust and sometimes skippered one of their day-trip narrow boats.

Always a man with forthright opinions, John Hardwick had a strong sense of duty and was a firm disciplinarian who mellowed a little with age. He brewed homemade wine for many years, produced home movies, made bread and was also an avid weather-watcher who kept barometer records going back decades. Concludes Richard Hardwick: “My father was never happier than when he was on a boat, regardless of the weather. He was in control on the water, and it showed.”