But his parents were Dissenters, and he was trained for the ministry in the academy of David Jennings, at Wellclose Square, London.
At Congleton he saw much of Joseph Priestley, then at Nantwich, who thought of him as a good classical scholar and entertaining companion.
An appendix to the printed sermon takes Taylor's side in disputes about the academy, against John Seddon, and shows, according to Alexander Gordon writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, that Harwood was by this time at one with Taylor's semi-Arian theology; although he says that he never adopted the tenets of Arius.
Their eldest son, Edward Harwood (numismatist), wrote a Latin epitaph to their memory.
A first volume (1767) of Introduction to New Testament Studies attracted the notice of Principal William Robertson of the University of Edinburgh, on whose recommendation he was made D.D.
Lardner just lived long enough to commend his first volume, and give some hints for a second, and other early friends were dead.
Thomas Newton, bishop of Bristol, and Edmund Law, while master of Peterhouse, gave him encouragement; Robert Lowth lent him books; and the value of his work was recognised by continental scholars, his first volume being translated into German (Halle, 1770) by J. F. Schulz of Göttingen.
His biblical works are: His contributions to classical studies are: Harwood also translated from the French Abauzit's ‘Miscellanies,’ 1774, and from the German (a language which he learned after 1773) Christoph Martin Wieland's ‘Memoirs of Miss Sophy Sternheim,’ 1776, 2 vols.
Among his publications on general religious subjects are: His ‘liberal’ 1768 rendering of the New Testament was suggested by the Latin version of Castalio.