HARDING, Thomas (Grimwade p.535/6)

[buckler]

Grimwade suggests he may be the son of Thomas Harding , Milkman of the parish of St Bennett's Pauls's Wharf and apprenticed to Richard Holder 4th March 1735. Holder was an apprentice of Benjamin Bird , a bucklemaker in Bell Savage Yard .
The father probably died in 1748, as the will of a Thomas Harding, Milkman, Saint Mary Newington Butts Surrey was proved at Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 5th February 1748.

Thomas Harding almost certainly had a mark in the lost register as an Old Bailey Trial of 1752 actually mentions his stamp of TH on his buckles .

14th May 1752. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Ref: t17520514-1

Thomas Harding . I keep a goldsmith's shop in the Minories.
On Friday the 17th of April, about two o'clock, I was standing at my shop door, I
observed a great hole broke in my glass case, and instead of a pair of
silver buckles, I found this marble and the buckles gone.
I sent my servant for the glazier a while he was mending it came a chimney-sweeper boy, and asked me if I
had lost any silver buckles; I said I had lost one pair; he said he had
seen two boys in Beggars-Alley, Heydon-Square, and one of them was putting
a great pair of silver buckles in his shoes ; I did not give any regard to
it. About half an hour after a woman, whose name was Jane Hughes , from
Rosemary-Lane, came and asked a neighbour of mine, of the same business as
I am, if he had lost any buckles; he said my neighbour has; then he said
to me, Harding, I believe I have found your buckles; then she asked me
what marks them I had lost had. I said T. H. and produced the stamp that
made them; then she gave the buckles to me, and said they were my
property.

17th March 1787 Will of Thomas Harding Goldsmith of London proved at PCC
Left legacies to
Daughter, Martha Vaux, Wife of Thomas Vaux
Daughter, Sarah Blackburn (?) Widow
Son, Thomas Harding
Son, Benjamin Harding
Son, John Harding
Apprentice, David Cartwright
and the freehold and other properties etc to his wife, Ann Harding and three unmarried daughters Mary Ann Harding, Ann Harding ,and Elizabeth Harding.

It seems that the ladies carried on the business.

24th October 1787. Proceedings of the Old Bailey : t17871024-14
Mary Ann Harding , spinister sworn.
I am a goldsmith ; my mother and two sisters are my partners; I live at No. 43, in the Minories ; on Wednesday, the 17th of October, as we were at breakfast, between nine and ten, in the back parlour, we received an alarm that the shew glass was cut; there was a cry of stop thief; when I examined the glass, I found there was one pair of silver shoe-buckles, and two odd silver shoe buckles taken out; they were brought back by a neighbour, Mr. Taylor; they were the two odd buckles; my brother has had them in his possession ever since till this time.

One wonders why they offered for sale two odd shoe buckles !

In 1793 the Goldsmiths Company Apprentice Book No 9 , page 279, records the apprenticeship of William Harding, son of Thomas Harding of Wood Street, London, Goldsmith , to John Willis of Blue Anchor Alley , Bunhill Row ,London, Bucklemaker Citizen and Goldsmith , to learn the art of a Buckle Maker. Premuim of paid by the Charity of the Worshipfull Company of Goldsmiths, London. There is also a reference to Mary Willis, widow of John Willis . This is probably another Harding family as William is unmentioned in the will above, and would seem too young to be a grandson.