Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gardiner, Robert William
GARDINER, Sir ROBERT WILLIAM (1781–1864), general, colonel-commandant royal horse artillery, second son of Captain John Gardiner, senior, 3rd buffs, by his wife Mary, daughter of J. Allison of Durham, was born 2 May 1781, entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, as a cadet, 13 July 1795, and passed out as a second lieutenant royal artillery 7 April 1797. His subsequent military commissions were dated as follows: first lieutenant 16 July 1799, second captain 12 Oct. 1804, first captain 18 Nov. 1811, brevet-major 27 April 1812, brevet-lieutenant- colonel 8 March 1814, brevet-colonel 22 July 1831, regimental colonel 24Nov. 1839, major-general 23 Nov. 1841, lieutenant-general 11 Oct. 1851, general 28 Nov. 1854, and colonel-commandant 23 March 1853. In October 1797 Gardiner embarked for Gibraltar, then partially blockaded by the French and Spanish fleets, and the year after was present at the capture of Minorca. He commanded a detachment of twelve guns with the force under General Don sent to Stade and Cuxhaven in November 1805, as the advance of the army proceeding to Hanover under command of Lord Cathcart. The troops having returned to England in January 1806, Gardiner effected an exchange to Sicily, which he reached just after the battle of Maida. He served in Sicily, part of the time as aide-de-camp to General Fox and afterwards to Sir John Moore, returning with Moore to England from Gibraltar in December 1807. As the regulations prevented him from serving on Moore's staff on the expedition to Sweden, he exchanged in order to accompany Sir Arthur Wellesley to Portugal. He was present at Rolica and Vimeiro. He was brigade-major of the artillery in the Corunna retreat. In the Walcheren expedition he was present at the siege of Middleburg and Flushing, and was invalided for fever. On his recovery he proceeded to Cadiz, and his battery took a prominent part in the battle of Barossa. He joined Lord Wellington's army in February 1812, and received a brevet majority for his services at the siege and capture of Badajoz (Gurwood, Wellington Despatches, v. 580). He commanded a field battery at the battle of Salamanca, the capture of Madrid, the siege of Burgos (where he volunteered to serve in the siege batteries), and in the Bur- gos retreat. Early in 1813 Gardiner was ap- pointed to the command of E (afterwards D) troop royal horse artillery, then attached to the 7th division, with which he fought at Vittoria in the Pyrenees, at Orthez, Tarbes, and Toulouse. He was made K.C.B. in 1814. In 1815 his troop was stationed in front of Carlton House during the corn riots, and subsequently proceeded to Belgium, where he commanded it through the Waterloo cam- paign and entered Paris. Gardiner was. ap- pointed principal equerry to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg on the prince's marriage with the Princess Charlotte of Wales, and held the post until Prince Leopold became king of the Belgians, after which Gardiner continued to reside at Claremont. He was governor and commander-in-chief at Gibraltar from 1848 to 1855. In 1844 Gardiner published a brief memoir of Admiral Sir Graham Moore, brother of Sir John Moore. Between 1848 and 1860 he published a number of pamphlets on mili- tary organisation, especially as regards artillery and national defence. In 1854 the committee of merchants at Gibraltar memorialised Lord Aberdeen's government against Gardiner's interference with the Gibraltar trade, which he described as contraband, and sought to render more reputable. The correspondence, together with a long report by Gardiner on 'Gibraltar as a Fortress and a Colony,' is printed in 'Parl. Papers,' 1854, vol. xliii. A scurrilous pamphlet, purporting to be a reply to the report, was distributed gratis, without any printer's name, by the committee of merchants in 1856. Gardiner was the author of many valuable reports on professional subjects, which are said to have contributed largely to the improvement in the artillery service which began after 1848 (Duncan, Hist. Royal Artillery, vol. ii.) Gardiner was a G.C.B. and K.C.H., and had the decoration of St. Anne of Russia for his services in Belgium and France. The Princess Charlotte of Wales appears to have written personally, but unsuccessfully, to the Duke of Wellington, asking him to recom- mend Gardiner for Portuguese and Spanish decorations {Well. Suppl. Desp. xi. 515). When governor of Gibraltar, the queen of Spain sent him the Cross of Charles III, which the regulations of the service forbade his wearing. Gardiner married, on 11 Oct. 1816, Caroline Mary, eldest daughter of Sir John Macleod, adjutant-general royal artillery, and granddaughter on the maternal side of the fourth Marquis of Lothian, by whom he had one son, the present lieutenant-general and honorary general, Henry Lynedoch Gardiner, C.B., retired royal artillery, equerry in ordinary to the queen, and one daughter. Gardiner died at Melbourne Lodge, Claremont, 26 June 1864, aged 83.
[Kane's List of Officers Royal Artillery (revised ed. 1869); Duncan's Hist. Royal Art.; Gent. Mag. 3rd ser. xvii. 383-5.]