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, he 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. Richards was the founder of the Rotary Club of Carlton in 1985 and its Charter President.

Honours Member of the Order of Australia, 1980, for service to technical education Honorary Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Melbourne