Joseph Hardcastle (1752-1819)
Joseph Hardcastle was born in Leeds.
He moved to London at the age of fifteen and joined his uncle in business.
A member of the Bury Street Independent Chapel, he was very actively engaged in evangelical causes as a director of the Sierra Leone Company from 1791 and treasurer of the LMS.
In 1802 he accompanied William Wilberforce to Paris with a mind to starting evangelistic work there and as a result became involved in the British and Foreign and Bible Society.
Source: Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, edited by Donald Lewis (1995)