George Harding

Background

George Harding was born on October 26, 1827, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of Jesper Harding, publisher of the Pennsylvania Inquirer, and of Maria (Wilson) Harding, and the brother of William White Harding.

Education

George was educated in the public schools and at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in 1846. Accepted as an office student in that year by John Cadvalader, later noted as United States district judge, he was admitted to the bar in 1849.

Career

In 1849 George Hardinge was made secretary of the Law Academy of Philadelphia. His extraordinary abilities were recognized from the first. Within two years he assisted Edwin M. Stanton, representing the state of Pennsylvania, in a case of great importance before the Supreme Court of the United States; and two years later he began his connection under circumstances extraordinarily flatting to him, with the early litigation over the Morse telegraph patent, which lasted for many years.

Harding was prominent in the litigation involving the McCormick reaper and other farm machinery, and also in a series of cases during three decades, remarkable for complexity and for his unvarying success, involving the manufacture of fat acids and glycerin. His work was primarily in the fields of mechanics and chemistry; lacking both the requisite technical knowledge and the strength to acquire it, he took little part in the abundant litigation over electric problems which arose after he was fifty.

Harding was at least partly responsible for the establishment of some of the fundamental doctrines of United States patent law. It is a branch of practice which few, even of the legal profession, can either understand or appreciate. It was Harding’s custom, in arguing cases in court, to perform chemical experiments and operate miniature models of machines and appliances (the telephone system between New York and Washington, a miniature grainfield and reaper, a felting machine, a furnace) to make clear the technical problems involved in the litigation.

Harding's strength seems to have lain as much in remarkable gifts of exposition as in intellectual power; and those gifts, coupled with his ardor and resourcefulness in argument and graces of manner, would probably have won him far greater fame, if otherwise no greater success, in other and less technical fields of practice. He retired from practice in 1897. In 1853 he delivered before the Franklin Institute an “Address” on the progress of the mechanic arts. Aside from stray reprints of his arguments in court he left no other writings.

Achievements

• George Harding is known by many as the greatest U. S. patent attorney of the late nineteenth century. Harding represented Samuel F. Morse in 1854 determining that Morse was the original inventor of the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Great American Lawyers: The Lives and Influence of Judges and Lawyers Who Have Acquired Permanent National Reputation, and Have Developed the ... in America, Vol. 5 (Classic Reprint)

    (From a photograph taken during the period of his leadersh...)

Membership

Harding was a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Personality

Harding was capable of joining humor and entertainment with scientific accuracy and curious learning in the dryest patent dispute.

Connections

Harding's wife was Charlotte Kenner of New Orleans, who bore him four children.

Father:

Jesper Harding

Mother:

Maria (Wilson) Harding

Spouse:

Charlotte (Kenner) Harding

Brother:

William White Harding

Daughter:

Bella Kenner (Harding) Scratchley

Son:

Butler Kenner Harding

References

• Martin's Bench and Bar of Philadelphia