Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy, 1st Baronet, GCB (5 April 1769 – 20 September 1839) was a British Royal Navy officer.

He served as flag captain to Admiral Lord Nelson, and commanded HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars.

[8] While en route to Gibraltar, in the action of 19 December 1796, Minerve and her consort, the fifth-rate HMS Blanche, engaged two Spanish frigates and forced Santa Sabina to surrender.

[7] Hardy and Culverhouse were almost immediately exchanged for the captain of Santa Sabina, Don Jacobo Stuart, and were able to rejoin Minerve at Gibraltar on 9 February 1797.

[9] Three days later Minerve left Gibraltar to join the main fleet off the south-east coast of Spain under Sir John Jervis.

As the enemy ships were closing fast, Cockburn thought it prudent to withdraw, but Nelson overruled him crying "By God, I'll not lose Hardy, back that mizzen topsail!"

[10] Hardy remained with Minerve until May 1797 when, following a successful cutting out expedition of which he was in charge, he was promoted to master and commander of the newly captured corvette HMS Mutine.

[11] Under Hardy's command, Mutine joined a squadron under Captain Thomas Troubridge which met up with Nelson off Toulon in June 1798, located Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt and destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798.

[13] HMS Vanguard carried King Ferdinand IV and the British ambassador Sir William Hamilton and his wife Emma from Naples to safety in Sicily in December 1798: Hardy did not altogether approve of Lady Hamilton who had once tried to intervene on behalf of a boat's crew – Hardy had the crew flogged twice, once for the original offence and again for petitioning the lady.

[15] In June 1799, the main fleet, led by Foudroyant, landed marines at Naples to assist with the overthrow of the Parthenopean Republic so allowing Ferdinand's kingdom to be re-established.

[16] Hardy handed over command of Foudroyant to Sir Edward Berry on 13 October 1799, transferred to the fifth-rate HMS Princess Charlotte and returned to England.

[17] After a year ashore, Hardy went to Plymouth Dock in December 1800 to take command of the first-rate HMS San Josef, which had just been refitted.

[29] There Nelson's body was transferred to the Sheerness Commissioner, Sir George Grey, 1st Baronet's yacht Chatham to proceed to Greenwich.

[36] On 11 July 1814, Hardy in his flagship, assisted by Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Pilkington, led four other warships and several transports carrying 2,000 men of the 102nd Regiment of Foot and a company of Royal Artillery against Fort Sullivan in Eastport, Maine.

Hardy and Pilkington issued a proclamation making it clear Great Britain considered Eastport and the several nearby islands to be British territory.

[41] Promoted to rear admiral on 27 May 1825,[42] Hardy hoisted his flag aboard the third-rate HMS Wellesley and escorted 4,000 British troops to Lisbon, where they helped to quell a revolution by the eight-year-old queen's uncle in December 1826.

[44] Hardy became First Naval Lord in the Grey ministry in November 1830[45] and was advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 13 September 1831.