William Barclay Harding

William Barclay Harding (November 16, 1906 – June 30, 1967) was an American financier who served as chairman of the board of Smith, Barney and Co. until his death in 1967.

Early life Harding was born in New York City on November 16, 1906, and grew up in a townhouse on Fifth Avenue. and the socialite and philanthropist Laura Barney Harding, who was a close friend of actress Katharine Hepburn. His father was a banker and financier who served as a director of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and the New York Municipal Railways System.

His maternal grandparents were Charles D. Barney and Laura (née Cooke) Barney, a daughter of Philadelphia financier Jay Cooke. His grandfather, a former member of his great-grandfather's firm, Jay Cooke & Company, founded Charles D. Barney & Co. in 1873 before retiring in 1907. The business continued under the same name, with his father helping to run the firm. he became a partner in the new firm like his brother. As a financier, he "was responsible for reshaping the financial architecture of many corporations, especially in the aviation industry."

He was a founder of the Red Bank Airport and a member of the Monmouth County Airport Advisory Board. In 1955, at the request of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he headed an Aviation Facilities Studies Group to study air traffic control problems which eventually led to the formation of the Federal Aviation Agency. He also served on the New York City Council on Port Development and Promotion. Before they separated in 1941, they were the parents of two sons and a daughter: Dorothea Harding (1930–1997), who married writer and produce Blair Chotzinoff (1926–2005), a nephew of violinist Jascha Heifetz, in 1957. He had previously been engaged to Gloria Steinem. After having two daughters, they divorced and she married William H. Kobin. Timothy Fox Harding (b. 1934), a writer who married Patricia Anne Nye, a daughter of Selden Spencer Nye, in 1956.

After they were divorced on June 28, 1943, in Nevada, Constance remarried George Lavan Weissman (1916–1985) and Harding remarried Mary Newbold (née Reed) Dodge, the daughter of Latham Reed and former wife of Marshall J. Dodge Jr. (grandson of Josephine Jewell Dodge), in August 1943. They lived at 435 East 52nd Street in Manhattan and in a 150-year-old farmhouse in Holmdel Township in New Jersey.