Harold Harding

He was also a founder fellow of the Fellowship of Engineering and governor of three separate academic institutions: Westminster Technical College.

[1] Upon graduation Harding joined John Mowlem & Co., an engineering contractor, where he worked on the development of the London Underground network including the reconstruction of the Piccadilly Circus tube station from 1926 to 1929.

[2] During this period Harding was the first to employ the technique of dewatering of soil in the UK and the first to use the Joosten process of stabilisation by two part chemical injection.

Major foundation problems had to be overcome during the works as the plant was sited on the spot where Cornelius Vermuyden had closed a breach in the Thames in 1621–22.

[2] He was in charge of the 1936–39 extension of the London Underground's Central line from Bow Road tube station to Leytonstone.

[2] From 1943 to 1944 Harding was involved with the pre-casting of concrete and built several petrol barges and eight of the Mulberry Harbour segments which were used in the Normandy Landings.

From 1966 to 1967 Harding was also a member of the Aberfan disaster tribunal, chaired by Lord Justice Edmund Davies, which investigated the rotational slip of a slag heap in South Wales which caused 144 deaths.

[1] The National Archives lists some of Harding's professional papers dated 1926–1986 which relate to Piccadilly Circus and the Channel Tunnel.