Forsyth Hardy

Henry Forsyth Hardy was born in Bathgate, West Lothian on 12 February 1910.[1] He co-founded the Edinburgh Film Guild in 1929.[2] Hardy started his career as an office bearer in the Edinburgh Film Guild, Scottish Film Council and the Federation of Scottish Film Societies.[3] He was working as a reporter for The Scotsman in 1930, where he wrote a review of John Grierson's Drifters, Grierson enjoyed the review that he went to speak with Hardy.[1]

In 1932 he became The Scotsman's first film critic,[3] and after ten years with the company, he left to become head of information at the Scottish Office.[1] Hardy was one of the founders of the British Film Institute in 1933, and also a founding member of the Scottish Film Council in 1934.[1] Hardy was also a co-founder of the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1947.[3]

From 1953-75, Hardy was the first Director for the Films of Scotland committee; he worked on 140 films during his time with the committee.[3] He was put in charge of overseeing John Grierson's work on the documentary Seawards The Great Ships which was released in 1961.[3] Seawards was the first Scottish film to win an Academy Award during the 1962 award ceremony.[4]

Hardy then left the Films of Scotland committee to become the first secretary of the Scottish Film Directors Fund.[3]

Hardy co-founded the Cinema Quarterly with Norman Wilson in Edinburgh in 1932, people also contributed to the paper, and this included Paul Rotha, Basil Wright and John Grierson.[1] The quarterly continued before it stopped circulating under Cinema Quarterly in 1935; however, in its later years, it had notable contributions from Graham Greene, T.S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley.[5]

In 1936 the name of the magazine changed to World Film News and Television Progress in 1936, it then had a final change of name to SEE: World Film News for three issues before publication of the magazine ceased.[5]

• The Forsyth Hardy Collection at the University of Stirling Archives