William Giles Harding (1808 – December 15, 1886) was a Southern planter, attorney, and horse breeder who was made a Brigadier General in the Tennessee militia before the American Civil War.

After being imprisoned at Fort Mackinac, he took the oath of allegiance to the Union and did not take an active part in the conflict from 1862 onwards.

Following his daughter Selene's marriage to William Hicks Jackson, Harding collaborated with his son-in-law to co-manage the Belle Meade plantation through much of the late 19th century.

After Jackson's death in 1903, the executor of the estate sold most of the plantation to a land development company in 1906 because of debt.

Development from 1938 created a residential suburb known as the independent city of Belle Meade, Tennessee, near Nashville.

This property is now operated as a museum known as Belle Meade Plantation, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

[4] At the age of forty-five, from 1853 to 1854, Harding began construction of a larger Greek Revival mansion on the Belle Meade Plantation that incorporated some of his father's brick house.

[5][6] While Harding raced some of his horses, he was most interested in the practice of breeding high-quality blood stock.

[1] He began a practice of holding yearling sales at Belle Meade, which attracted attention to the quality of his horses.

[2][6] Prior to the American Civil War of 1861–1865, he had attained the rank of Brigadier General in the Tennessee State Militia.

In addition to her own family of three, her sister Mary McGavock Southall; stock manager William Hague; farm manager James Beasley and his family of seven; Rachael Noris, a free mulatto woman; and 137 enslaved were all living at Belle Meade.

[4] Harding agreed to the marriage of his daughter Selene to the widower William Hicks Jackson, a Confederate general, if the couple lived at Belle Meade Plantation.

[2] The younger Jackson became an attorney who served in US Army intelligence during World War II and contributed to the formation of the CIA, modeled after the British OSS.

It is now operated as a museum and event space known as Belle Meade Plantation and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.