and Abroad' was issued in 1874. In 1830 Harding exhibited Italian views sketched on papers of various tints and textures. This novel idea was generally adopted, and for many years 'Harding's papers' (as they came to be called by drawing-masters), manufactured by Whatman, were extensively used for sketching purposes. In the practice of water-colour painting Harding was chiefly responsible for the abandonment of the exclusive use of transparent colours, in which nearly all the great artists worked before his time. Harding, following the example first set by Turner, freely employed opaque or body colour. In his skilful hands the results were so pleasing that, in spite of the strong opposition of artists trained in old traditions, the system was universally accepted by younger men, and it is now a distinguishing feature of modern water-colour art.
Harding was a prolific author of educational manuals. His 'Lessons on Art,' 'Guide and Companion to Lessons on Art,' 'Elementary Art, or the Use of the Chalk and Lead Pencil advocated and explained,' and 'The Principles and Practice of Art,' in which he expounded his theories with great ability, became approved text-books both here and abroad. At the Paris exhibition of 1855 he obtained 'honourable mention' for two pictures, 'The Falls of Schaffhausen' and 'View of Fribourg.' He died at Barnes, Surrey, 4 Dec. 1863, and was buried in Brompton cemetery.
Harding's sketches, especially of trees and architecture, were executed with amazing facility and dexterity. They show his powers at their best, and have elicited warm praise from Mr. Ruskin in his 'Modern Painters.' His pictures, though popular, were mannered and superficial, and lacked the higher qualities of art. His treatment by the Royal Academy, which not only declined to admit him to its membership, but hung his works badly at its exhibitions, was therefore not unjustifiable. One of his oil-paintings, 'On the Moselle,' is in the collection of Sir Richard Wallace, and there are two in the South Kensington Museum. Harding was a man of much refinement and of genial manners; his portrait appeared in the 'Art Journal,' 1850, p. 181.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Art Journal, 1850p 181, 1856 p. 270, 1864 p. 89; C. Knight's English Cyclopædia of Biography, 1856; Men of the Time, 1856; Athenæum, 12 Dec. 1863; Redgrave's Cat. of the Water-colour Paintings in the South Kensington Museum, 1877; Encycl. Brit. 9th ed. xviii. 140.]
HARDING, JOHN (1378–1465?). [See Hardyng.]
HARDING, JOHN, D.D. (1805–1874), bishop of Bombay, son of William Harding, chief clerk in the transport office, and his wife Mary Harrison Ackland, was born in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, on 7 Jan. 1805. He was educated at Westminster School, proceeded to Worcester College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in Michaelmas term 1826 as a third-class man in lit. human., his name appearing in the same class list with three other future bishops, Samuel Wilberforce of Oxford, Eden of Moray and Ross, and Trower of Gibraltar. In 1829 he became curate of Wendy in Cambridgeshire. After some other ministerial engagements he was appointed minister of Park Chapel, Chelsea, in 1834, and in 1836 became rector of the united parishes of St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe and St. Anne's, Blackfriars, in the city of London. William Romaine (d. 1795) [q. v.], one of the early evangelical leaders, had been rector of this church, and the doctrines of that school had been consistently maintained by his successors. Harding was an ardent 'evangelical,' and during the fifteen years of his incumbency his church was a favourite gathering-place of members of that school. His sermons were calm, thoughtful, and impressive. He was for some years secretary of the Pastoral Aid Society, and exhibited a warm interest in various religious societies of the evangelical school. Harding was selected by Archbishop Sumner for the see of Bombay, vacated by the resignation of Bishop Carr, and was consecrated in Lambeth Chapel on 10 Aug. 1851. In the same year he proceeded B.D. and D.D. at Oxford. He administered his diocese conscientiously, but lacked energy and originating power. His somewhat rigid evangelicalism led him to look coldly on 'brotherhoods' and other proposed agencies of the high church party for supplementing the deficiencies of missionary work in the diocese. He was little seen in his diocese except at the three chief centres of the province, and consequently had small personal knowledge of its real wants. He was the firm opposer of what are known as ritualistic practices. Failure of health led to his return home on furlough in 1867, and he resigned the see in 1869. He settled at Ore, near Hastings, where with increasing years his religious sympathies widened, and the clerical meetings at his house formed a rallying-point for clergy of widely different views. He was a frequent preacher at St. Mary's-in-the-Castle, Hastings, of which his friend the Rev. T. Vores was incumbent. He died at Ore on 18 June 1874. He married Mary, third daughter of W. Tebbs, esq., proctor in Doctors' Commons, but left no family.
