Richard Jardine

Richard is currently Professor of Geomechanics and College Proconsul at Imperial College London. In 2022, Richard was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2024 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society – the organisation that promotes and recognises scientific excellence. Credit for this photo goes to the Royal Society.

Richard left Manwood’s to study Civil Engineering at Imperial College. Early in his career, Richard worked for the County Council on flood defence and major road projects, including the difficult Stour River crossing of the Sandwich Bypass, which opened around 1980. He recalls the wide breadth of knowledge he gained from the staff and fellow students, which left him with an appreciation of the humanities, an ability to get by working in French and vivid memories of how poor he was at drill in the CCF!

His webpage (click here to go to it) describes his work over the five decades that followed, noting his recent research into establishing the conditions required for the foundations for large offshore wind farms.

Richard recently reflected on his time at Manwood’s: “First among the many things I learned in my years Manwood’s were the critical need to be safe and responsible, whether working in the lab with dangerous reagents or electrical kit or of course with weapons in the CCF.  I also found that my interactions with knowledgeable staff allowed scope for scientific creativity. I especially remember working with Mr Ray Harlow, who taught Physics, after he had new ‘decade scaler’ electronic equipment delivered. He encouraged me to devise and set up, with his help, a new experiment that measured the acceleration due to earth’s gravity, finding a decently accurate result within a one hour lunch break! Such experiences added to the respect I held for such teachers. I also realise that the hard academic work expected of us, and experiences such as cross country running and arduous training in the CCF, helped build my resilience, which has been crucial to my career since leaving school. I am pleased to see that Manwoods now also emphasises compassion. While vital to all of us, this value was given far less weighting over the 1964-71 years that I spent at the school.”