Author: Gardiner, Richard
Biography:
GARDINER, Richard (1723-81: ODNB)
He was one of four surviving children born to the Rev. Dr. John Gardiner and his wife Hannah Turner and was baptised at Saffron Walden, Essex, on 3 Oct. 1723. He was educated at Eton College (1738-39) and admitted to St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, on 15 Jan. 1742. He did not take a degree and left the university in 1744 to serve as an army volunteer in Flanders. Later in the same year he served as a volunteer in the British navy at Florence and, in an attempt to gain a commission, claimed that he was a natural son of Sir Robert Walpole. He was held by the French as a prisoner of war in 1747-48. On his release and return to England, he was ordained deacon in Norwich on 18 Dec. 1748 and made a curate at Brumstead, Norfolk, where his father was the rector. He resigned his orders in 1751 and went abroad again but had returned in time to write political satire before the 1754 general election. His first published book, The History of Pudica…With an Account of her Five Lovers, was issued in 1754; Gardiner appears in the book as one of the lovers, Dick Merryfellow. He joined the army in 1756 and became a lieutenant in the 12th regiment of foot. In 1757 he took charge of a company of marines and in 1759 served in the engagement at St. Pierre, Martinique, and at the siege of Guadaloupe. On his return home in 1759 he published An Account of the Expedition to the West Indies which went to three editions. He married Ann Bromhead (1734-1802) at St. James’s, Piccadilly, London, on 3 May 1761; his address is given as Holborn, London. They had three surviving children, two sons and a daughter. Gardiner retired from the army on half-pay and again took up his pen in the cause of political propaganda. In about 1773 he purchased Mount Amelia, an estate at Ingoldisthorpe, Norfolk, and briefly served as the auditor-general for the Holkham estate. He died at Mount Amelia on 14 Sept. 1781 and was buried in the cemetery at Ingoldisthorpe. (ODNB 26 Aug. 2024; Memoirs of the life and writings (prose and verse) of R—ch—d G—rd—n—r esq. [1782]; CCEd [as Gardner] 26 Aug. 2024; ancestry.co.uk26 Aug. 2024; R. W. Ketton-Cremer, Norfolk Portraits [1944]; ACAD; Burke)