Mexborough and Swinton Times June 18, 1937
Full and Useful Career
Thurnscoe Sportsman and Educationalist
In industrial areas such as this, where busy towns have grown out of sleeping agricultural villages in a few decades, where the majority of the population is composed of men and women from other parts of the country, there seems to be a lack of tradition; a lack of people have who lived in the same village all their lives and can recall with ease its history.
In Thurnscoe there are a few families who were considered to be old residents even in the last century, but the majority of people, it is safe to assume, have settled in that village since that sinking of Hickleton Main Colliery in 1892.
In that second class we find a man – with public service that has been so varied and vigourous since the end of the last century that we find it difficult to realise that he was not born and bred in Thurnscoe.
He is Mr Samuel Hardwick, 42, Common Road, now hale and hearty in his 84th year.
One always thinks of Mr Ardwick in a twofold manner, for his established name for himself as a keen educationalist and an ardent sportsman and now that he is gradualy casting off the shackles – pleasant shackles, nevertheless shackles – of voluntary public duties, it is time to recall memories of his many activities.
He was a founder of the Hickleton Cricket Club in March 1893, and was the first captain and second secretary. Since that time he has seen the membership rise from under 20 to more than 400.
Many of his more serious endeavours, however have been in the service of education. He was first appointed a member of an education authority in the days of the school board, when the 1870 Education Act was still in force. Ever since those times Mr Hardwick has been re-elected year after year, but now feels that the present time is opportune for giving up public appointments.
During the time he has been a member of the local education committee he has been unanimously re-elected chairman for 17 successive years. One of his most pleasant recollection of those years is the time when he presided at the opening of the Hill School by Lord Harewood.
Mr Hardwick’s work is not of the nature which will be easily forgotten; for until it is already enshrined in the success of those former Thurnscoe boys who have owed something perhaps to Mr Hardwick’s administration.
The Thurnscoe education committee placed on record their appreciation of the splendid services he has rendered the community generally. In the sphere of education alone, his work has the magnitude of a life work.
Yet so multifarious were his activities that he was appointed the first treasurer of the Working Men’s Medical Fund; a Parish Councillor, secretary to the Sports Association, Flower Shows, and the first Choral Society; chairman of the local Conservative Association, Bowling Club, Sick and Dividing society, Angling Society, a representative on the Montagu Hospital Board of managers, on the local committees of ambulance classes, mining classes and Thurnscoe Institute, Sunday schools, Hickleton Golf club, and the Mexborough and District Cricket league.
If this is not a full and worthy life what is?