Wyndham Harding (1817–1855)[1] was an English civil engineer and philanthropist.
He was Secretary of the London and South-Western Railway Company.
He was awarded the Telford Medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1847,[1] and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1852, his citation reading " The Author of A Paper "on the Laws of the Resistances experienced in Railway Trains," (printed in the Transactions of the Institution of Civil Engineers and used in the new edition of Tredgold on the Steam-Engine.
[2] Apart from being an active supporter of Mechanics’ Institutes, Benefit Societies, and similar institutions, he expended a large portion of his wealth in promoting systematic emigration.
As a philanthropist, he earned the well-merited gratitude of hundreds, whom he assisted in procuring a free passage to Australia, or to whom he advanced loans for that purpose, including working with Caroline Chisholm.