Gilbert Charles Harding (5 June 1907 – 16 November 1960) was a British journalist and radio and television personality.

His many careers included schoolmaster, journalist, policeman, disc jockey, actor, interviewer and television presenter.

[1][2] His father died in 1911 at the age of thirty following an appendicitis operation,[3] and so his mother sent their son to board at the Royal Orphanage of Wolverhampton, "an excellent academy" which prepared him for his subsequent education at Queens' College, Cambridge.

Due to the circumstances of his upbringing, Harding was fond of the "half-true" claim to have been "born in a workhouse and educated in an orphanage".

[4] His paternal grandparents, Gilbert William and Mary Priscilla Harding, were superintendents of the Children's Home at Caerleon, Newport, Wales; his maternal grandfather, Charles King, was in charge of the Hereford Union Workhouse, having previously worked at the workhouse in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.

As the focus of the interview moved on to the subject of death, Freeman asked Harding if he had ever been in the presence of a dead person.

[13] Behind Harding's gruff exterior there was a lonely and complex man who constantly donated to charity, visited the sick and helped many in need.

A three-hour programme, The Rudest Man in Britain, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in 2014 and has been repeated several times.

This included interviews with people who knew and worked with Harding, and explored his life, personality, sexuality and influence in a non-judgemental way.