Hart, Sir Andrew Searle (1811–90), mathematician, was born 14 March 1811, youngest of five sons of the Rev. George Vaughan Hart (d. 1836), rector of Castlebar, Co. Mayo, and his wife, Maria Murray (née Hume), daughter of John Hume, dean of Derry. She inherited Glenalla, Co. Donegal, which became the family home, from her Murray relatives. Hart had one sister, who married her cousin George Vaughan Hart of Kilderry, Co. Donegal. Andrew Hart was educated in Foyle College, Derry, and by a tutor; he entered TCD in November 1828, graduated BA (1833), and was elected a fellow (15 June 1835). In the autumn of 1835 he entered King's Inns, and in 1836 was enrolled in Gray's Inn, London. He was elected MRIA 13 February 1837, and in 1838 was called to the Irish bar. TCD awarded him an MA in 1839, and he graduated LLB and LLD in 1840. Hart published a number of mathematical papers in the RIA's Proceedings, the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, and the Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal; he also published An elementary treatise on mechanics (1844; 2nd ed. 1847), and An elementary treatise on hydrostatics and hydrodynamics (1846, 1850). His papers dealt with the geometry of curves and surfaces. Hart was also professor of real and personal property in King's Inns and a prominent member of the synod of the Church of Ireland. In 1858 he was coopted senior fellow of TCD and was made bursar; he was senior lecturer 1866–7 and registrar 1873–6. In February 1873 Hart was one of three fellows sent by the college to lobby MPs after the publication of Gladstone's bill on Irish university education, to which there was strong opposition. The proposal to re-form TCD as a national university, acceptable to catholics and open to nonconformists, was defeated in parliament by the narrow margin of three votes. In 1876 Hart was elected vice-provost of the college; he was efficient and reliable, and frequently deputised for the elderly provost, Humphrey Lloyd (qv). On 25 January 1886, in recognition of his academic attainments, Hart was knighted at Dublin castle by the lord lieutenant, Lord Carnarvon (qv). On 13 April 1890 he died at Kilderry, Co. Donegal, home of his brother-in-law.
He married (1840) Frances (d. 1876), daughter of Henry MacDougall, QC, of Dublin, and was survived by two sons, one of whom was Henry Chichester Hart (qv).