Harold Harding

Sir Harold John Boyer Harding (born January 6, 1900 in Wandsworth , London , † March 27, 1986 in Topsham , Devon ) was a British civil engineer specializing in tunneling and geotechnical engineering .

Harding studied from 1917 at the City and Guilds College of Imperial College London, interrupted in 1918 by a year of officer training. In 1922 he made his bachelor's degree as a civil engineer. He then worked for the construction company John Mowlem and Company, particularly in the construction of the London Underground. Among other things, he was involved in the renovation of Piccadilly Circus station from 1926 to 1929 and from 1936 to 1938 for the expansion of the Central Line. In 1931 he was involved in the founding of the construction of the Ford plant in Dagenham on difficult ground, where he tested chemical methods of consolidation for the first time in Great Britain . He also used chemical soil consolidation according to Joosten for the first time in Great Britain. During the Second World War he was responsible for the underground structures in London and built artificial harbors for landing in Normandy ( Mulberry Harbor ) and transport ships for fuel from prefabricated concrete parts. In 1942 he was one of the founders of Soil Mechanics Ltd., a company belonging to Mowlem for geotechnical and soil mechanical investigations. 1949 to 1956 he was its director and also from 1950 to 1956 director of Mowlem and worked for them in an advisory capacity until 1978. Harding was from 1958 to 1970 in a commission that examined the possibilities for a tunnel under the English Channel. He was also involved in the investigation of the catastrophic landslide of a mining dump in the village of Aberfan , Wales, which buried a school in 1966, killing 116 children and 28 adults.

1963 to 1964 he was President of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). 1972 to 1973 he was chairman of the British Tunneling Society. In 1968 he became a fellow of Imperial College (he was one of its governors from 1955 to 1975) and in 1952 of the City and Guilds of London Institute. In 1968 he was raised to a Knight Bachelor degree . In 1970 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of London .

He had been married to Sophie Helen Blair, daughter of the painter Edmund Blair Leighton , since 1927 , and had two sons and a daughter with her.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Dutchman Joosten introduced the process in 1926 (German patent). It consists of separate injection of water glass and calcium chloride into sandy soils.