Wyndham Harding , F.R.S.

From 'The Chaplin and Skinner Families' December 1902, page 89:

>> 3. Wyndham Harding, F.R.S., was born on the 9th August, 1817. He was educated at Rugby under the great Dr. Arnold, of whom he has left a graphic and interesting notice in Mr. Sidreay's 'Rides on Railways,' and to whom he attributed "a change in the very spirit of education, reaching beyond the years of boyhood or the limits of school walls." Of this he was himself a rare instance, being one of the very few civil engineers who early attained distinction and success in the profession with no further preparation than a strictly classical education at an English public school.
Leaving Rugby, he served an apprenticeship for one year with Mr. Nicholas Wood, the celebrated mining engineer, near Newcastle; he then became a pupil of Mr T.L. Souch, who was assistant engineer under Robert Stevenson on the Coventry division of the London and Birmingham Railway. He was employed first to survey and then to construct the Manchester and Leeds Railway, the character of work being very varied. In 1837 and 1838 he constructed what was regarded as a considerable undertaking, the Summit Tunnel near Rochdale. On its completion he came to London and devoted his attention to the organisation of railway business at Euston Square Staion, London, and Birmingham. In 1839 he was strongly recommended as successor to Capt. Mark Huish to be Secretary to the Glasgow and Greenock and Paisley Railway. From Secretary he soon became Acting General Manager. He left Greenock in 1844 to undertake the management of the Bristol and Gloucester line as General Superintendent, which post he filled with the greatest satisfaction; but declined receiving a testimonial, honourably conceiving he had merely performed his duty. His strenuous exertions to meet the increased traffic occasioned by the Great Exhibition of 1851 were so fully appreciatd by the directors, that they presented him with a valuable gold medal and a letter of thanks.
In 1846 he was awarded the Telford Medal by the Institution of Civil Engineers for his valuable experiments relative to the resistance of locomotives at high velocity. His remarks were always distinguished for their originality, candour and courtesy. His lecture before the British Association at Swansea in 1848 was characterised by Col. Sykes as "the basis and model of all future statistical calculations on the subject." He was elected F.R.S. and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Unwearied also were his efforts to assist and benefit the working classes. He assisted in procuring free passages to Australia, and advanced loans for that purpose. The inhabitants of Southhampton will long remember the day when Mrs. Chisholm and Mr. Harding met to witness the departure of the first Australian emigrant ship sailed under her superintendence at his risk and expense.
In the autumn of 1853 he took an engineering tour through the United States and Canada. After his return his health gradually declined, and after a lingering illness he died on the 1st April 1855, at the early age of thirty-eight. He was buried in the family vault at Rockfield.<<




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