Harold Charles Richards
Harold Charles Richards (12 October 1925 – 2 June 2014) was an Australian civil engineer who co-founded the consulting engineering firm Hardcastle & Richards. Career. Harold Richards studied engineering at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. In 1951, he worked in the Design Section of Johns and Waygood, which was responsible for many of Australia's post-war infrastructure developments. In 1952, the co-founded Hardcastle & Richards with business partner Roy Hardcastle, as a result of winning the design competition for the Olympic Stadium for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. However, a change in government caused the cancellation  of the project. The firm expanded to have offices in Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Brisbane and Broken Hill. The firm was involved in many civil engineering projects, including the King Street Bridge over the Yarra River. In 1962, Hardcastle & Richards were invited by the School of Engineering at the University of Melbourne to participate in guiding students' final year design projects. These projects were based on actual projects in which the firm had been involved. This association with engineering education lasted five decades. Other positions held: Philanthropy. For almost 50 years, Hardcastle & Richards were major donors to the School of Engineering  at the University of Melbourne and to RMIT University. In 1979, a bronze relief by artist Michael Meszaros, entitled "Compression and Tension" was presented to the Department of Civil Engineering to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the firm. Richards was the founder of the Rotary Club of Carlton in 1985 and its Charter President.