Edward Fitzmaurice Chambré Hardman (25 November 1898 – 2 April 1988)[1] was an Anglo-Irish photographer, later based for most of his career in Liverpool.

Hardman described his family as Anglo-Irish,[4] and his father as "a land agent for various estate owners and landlords in County Dublin".

From the age of eighteen, he spent four years as a regular officer in the 8th Gurkha Rifles in India where he would eventually be promoted to lieutenant.

[5] Whilst stationed at the Khyber Pass he met Captain Kenneth Burrell (1893–1953), a man who had not planned on an army career but rather hoped to set up a photographic studio back home in Liverpool, England.

Burrell was in most respects what one source describes as "a silent partner", but he brought to the partnership his excellent contacts in the Liverpool business community.

He received some practical instruction in photography from his father, and, by his own account, also received important lessons from Margaret Mills, who later became his wife:[4][8] She was about nineteen – the doctor's daughter and the beauty of the district.... She had a half-plate stand camera with several lenses, and used to print her negatives by the Carbon process.... She taught me the rudiments of choosing and composing a subject, and I think you could date the beginning of my interest in landscape to [those] days.She was a talented photographer in her own right, and one with sharp business instincts.

[4][8] It was also in 1923 that Hardman joined Liverpool's "Sandon Studios Society", an "artists' club": members included many of the city's practicing architects, painters, sculptors and musicians.

[4] While portraiture was Hardman's livelihood, his real photographic interest was landscape photography, which he pursued throughout his life alongside his commercial practice.

[2] They worked long hours at the studio, but still found time for weekend expeditions, strapping camera equipment onto their bicycles and riding out into the countryside to shoot landscapes.

In the same year Hardman won a contract with the Liverpool Playhouse theatre to provide portraits and production shots of actors.

The Hardmans then moved to larger premises at 59 Rodney Street, a couple of minute's to the north of the city's (by now almost completed) cathedral.

[12][13] By 1953, however, it seemed that the business was in uncertain times, and there is evidence of Hardman applying for other jobs including, work at the Bluecoat Society of Arts and at Kodak.

A year later Lancashire Life magazine included an article and profile of Hardman, in which he was described as selling negatives from his collection to Liverpool's local history archive.

When Peter Hagerty, director of Liverpool's Open Eye Gallery, visited him he said of the experience:[citation needed] this frail old man came down the stairs, there were four or five people from social services tidying up; they had gowns on and were filling bin bags with rubbish.

I started looking in the bags and saw photographs and negatives and magazines; I was instantly aware that a historical record was being thrown away: he had made no provision for anything.

He'd rely on home help and then complain.Hardman accepted Hagerty's suggestion that he should set up a trust, subsequently deciding to bequeath the bulk of his estate.

Exhibitions and articles of Hardman's work continued to be presented throughout the 1980s and he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.