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Henry John Gardiner (businessman)

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For the Australian politician, see Harry Gardiner. For the composer, see Henry Balfour Gardiner.
For the Governor of Massachusetts, see Henry Gardner. For the economist, see Henry B. Gardner. For similar names, see Harry Gardner.
H. J. Gardiner in 1920, painted by Sir Luke Fildes

Henry John Gardiner, (born 1843, died 2 February 1940),[1] was an English businessman who made an immense fortune in the clothing industry (colloquially known as the 'rag trade'), as chairman of various drapery warehousing and wholesale firms, and other business investments. His life was relatively uneventful, and he divided his time between his business affairs in London and shooting in the Hampshire countryside. He had two sons who profited from his enormous wealth, H. Balfour Gardiner, composer and patron of British classical music, and Sir Alan H. Gardiner, a renowned Egyptologist who was present at the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922.

Early life

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He was born in Bristol in 1843,[1] baptised on 11 December 1843 at the church of St Michael on the Mount Without.[citation needed]

His father, also named Henry Gardiner, was born in Bristol in 1809. He worked in the woollen drapery business carrying on his own father's retail trade, and started a modest wholesale clothing firm with connections in the West of England and South Wales. He developed a lucrative export trade in ready-made clothing to the West Indies,[2] followed by a series of Australian gold rushes from 1854 which increased profits considerably: supported by his two brothers, the firm began exporting to Australasia in 1854.[3][4] He partnered with Charles Wathen in 1862 to form Wathen Gardiner & Co., now Bristol Uniforms.[4] Henry Gardiner soon retired to Caterham on the Hill, Surrey, where he bought an estate called Essendene[5] (now demolished)[6] and died in Caterham in 1884, leaving an estate worth around £70,000 (at least £9,000,000 in 2024.)[7]

His mother was Margaret née Henderson; Henry John Gardiner was the only son out of six children.[3]

Gardiner received a "somewhat limited education" leaving school before the age of 16, and worked in a woollen warehouse in Liverpool for two years, 'learning the trade'.[1]

Career

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H. J. Gardiner & Co.

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He joined his father's business aged about 19 in Bristol shortly before the latter's retirement in 1862, and then travelled to British Columbia where he worked in a merchanting house for several years.[8] Returning to Britain, he formed his own firm, H. J. Gardiner & Co, an import-export merchant shipping company[9] with offices at 1 Gresham Buildings, 70 Basinghall Street, E.C.[10]

The firm had agents in Boston in 1868[11] and Vancouver in 1918[12] H. J. Gardiner & Co. acted as agents for a number of other companies, including Robert Ward & Co., Merchants and Importers, and Shipping Insurance Agents of Victoria, BC, in 1887;[13] and also the registered office of the London and Blantyre Supply Company, Importers, Exporters and General Merchants in 1922.[10] H. J. Gardiner & Co. suffered a shipping loss in 1917 during World War I.[b]

Gardiner liquidated the business in around 1922 on the death of his business partner.[9]

Bradbury, Greatorex & Co

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In 1869 aged about 26 he invested in the firm of Bradbury, Greatorex & Co., wholesalers of cloth, muslin, linen and imported silks, with warehouses in Aldermanbury, Cripplegate ward, London EC2, eventually becoming chairman in around 1895, a position he held until 1939; on retiring he became an honorary director.[8]

Bradbury, Greatorex & Co. was established in 1815 by John Bradbury and Jeremiah Greatorex, with a warehouse in Aldermanbury, in the area which became the centre of the 'rag trade' (the clothing industry) in the City of London. It continued as a privately owned company for over half a century.[17][18] The firm was instrumental in supporting a new building for the Boys' and Girls' School of Cripplegate Inner Ward which opened in 1838.[19] The warehouse burned down in a disastrous fire in 1845, with a total loss of £250,000. The City of London Guildhall narrowly escaped extensive damage.[20] The warehouse was rebuilt and enlarged as Nos. 2 - 11 Aldermanbury, with further buildings in Fountain and Dyer's Courts,[c] built in the same street after the fire.[21]

The company was incorporated in 1869,[17] the same year as Gardiner joined the board, and was later converted into a public limited company in 1898 with a capital value of £400,000, and was the seventh largest textile merchant in London.[22] In 1914 there were around about 500 or 600 employees. The firm had representatives in New Zealand, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia; also in Canada, Nova Scotia, Cape Colony, Natal, the Transvaal, and West Indies.[17]

The firm issued commercial overprint postage stamps as receipts for tax payments.[22]

The warehouses, still on the same site, escaped another fire during the night of 29 December 1940 during the London Blitz through the prompt efforts of the staff who were on fire-watch duty. After the war the firm removed to newly built premises, Ivanhoe House on Aldersgate Street. The Corporation of London approved a change of use from warehouse to offices, and the building was finally demolished in around 1987.[18] The firm became part of Courtaulds plc in 1984.[23]

After his marriage in 1870 (see § Family life) he lived at 6, Orsett Terrace, Westbourne Terrace, London W2, where his first son, H. Balfour Gardiner was born.[1] By 1879 he had moved to Eltham, at the time in Kent, where his second son Alan was born.[24] He was connected with the founding of a Mission Hall in 1884 in Pope Street, Eltham (now Avery Hill Road and Southwood Road, joining Foots Cray Road.)[25][26] It closed in 1898.[27]

He moved to 25 Tavistock Square, London in around 1890, and also had the use of a house known as "Moody's Down" in Sutton Scotney, Hampshire, where he enjoyed shooting as a recreation.[1]

Other investments

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He owned a tea plantation estate in the Cholo district, Nyasaland, now in Malawi.[8] Connections with a tea plantation in Nyasaland continued with the Cholo Land and Rubber Estate Company.[9] This seems to be connected with the Nchima Tea and Tung Estate, of which his grandson Rolf Gardiner became chairman.[28]

He became a director or chairman of several other companies.[1] He was chairman of the Holborn Viaduct Land Company Crown[d] which bought up open land (described as a "howling wilderness") around the Holborn Viaduct, completed in 1869, where new buildings were put up from around 1875.[30][e]

He was chairman of the Blackwell Colliery Company in Newton, Derbyshire, a director of the Bolsover Colliery Company, Derbyshire, and a director of Kingsbury Collieries Ltd., Tamworth, Staffordshire from 1903, along with Sir George A. Touche in 1923[32] becoming chairman in 1934.[8]

He was deputy chairman of the Atlas Assurance Company[33][1] and a director of the Canadian Bank of Commerce (probably the London branch at 2 Lombard Street).[1]

He was a member of Lloyd's of London from 1904.[34]

Although he took no part in the public life of the City of London, Gardiner was elected Sheriff of the County of London for 1919–1920.[8][35] Sir Luke Fildes painted a portrait of him, entitled 'Henry John Gardiner, Esq.' (see top of article).[36]

In 1940 his London address was 8, St. Agnes Court, Porchester Terrace, London W.2.[32]

Other activities

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Gardiner was a Freemason. In 1886 he belonged to the Royal Somerset House and Inverness Chapter, No. 4, one of the original four masonic lodges which constituted the Premier Grand Lodge of England, now the United Grand Lodge of England.[37] In 1899 he was the third Principal Officer (J).[38]

He seems to have had a keen interest in the natural world, including plants, geology and geography.

  • Letter from Henry J. Gardiner dated 2 September 1876 to Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, from 60 Queen Victoria Street, London: "Gardiner writes to inform Hooker that he will forward a grass specimen to him on behalf of some Central American clients, an explanation of which is provided in a memorandum [not included]. Gardiner would be grateful to receive any information on the plant. 'Lucopodium[?] furiforme, 'Borg' is added in another hand."[39]
  • Letter dated 6 August 1889 from H. J. Gardiner & Co at 1 Gresham Buildings to George Nicholson at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. "Gardiner & Co write in conjunction with Mr Gov. Wilczynski 'late of San Lorenzo, Ecuador', regarding seeds and fruits from the Cauca Valley which they had forwarded to RBG Kew. Gardiner & Co request that once Nicholson has received them, he confirm their safe arrival. Annotations indicate that 13 packets of seeds were received unnamed; they are described as a 'rubbishy' collection."[40]

He became a member of the Royal Geographical Society in 1873.[41]

He was a Member of the Geological Society. A scrapbook contains an example of his signature.[42] In 1936 the Natural History Museum acquired a collection of rocks described by him: "A general collection of about three hundred specimens, including some from the Exhibition of 1851, and various rocks originally described by Prof. H. L. Reynolds and Mr. H. J. Gardiner have been bought."[43]

He also made two donations to the British Museum: in 1871 a 'medicine mask' from the Tlingit people in Sitka, Alaska: "When living in Vancouver Island, a Hudson's Bay Company Captain obtained for me at my request from the Indians who inhabit the mainland of the neighbourhood of Sitka, a wooden painted medicine Mask, used at the Indian feasts; and I believe they are very scarce now ..."[44] and in 1910, a small three-spouted vase or vessel from Nicaragua.[45]

Death

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St John the Baptist, Eltham where he was buried

Gardiner died on 2 February 1940 aged 96, at his country home of Wonston, Sutton Scotney, Hampshire.[8] He was buried on 13 February 1940 at St John the Baptist church, Eltham.[citation needed]

Probate: 20 May 1940 - £372, 210 approx £17 million in 2024. Executors: Balfour and Alan Gardiner; a solicitor; and Frank Gardiner Fedden, a retired chartered accountant and perhaps a relative.[f]

Family life

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He married Clara Elizabeth née Honey,[1] on 31 May 1870 at Holy Trinity church, Westbourne Terrace, Paddington,[citation needed] with whom he had two sons, the composer Henry Balfour Gardiner (who always signed himself "H. Balfour Gardiner") and Alan Henderson Gardiner, a renowned Egyptologist, apparently named after his grandmother, Margaret née Henderson.[citation needed] His wife Clara died not long after giving birth to their second son,[1] and Gardiner seems not to have remarried.

References

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Notes
  1. ^ Chandler, Hargreaves, Whittall was a firm of insurance brokers. The Whitalls were a family of merchants in Turkey.[15]
  2. ^ The German U-boat SM U-81 sank the steamer Port Adelaide on 3 February 1917 in the Atlantic Ocean, 180 nautical miles (330 km) south west of the Fastnet Rock.[14] See also List of shipwrecks in February 1917#3 February. Part of the vessel's cargo was cotton and woolen goods for H J Gardiner and Co. The insurance claim was settled by the government. [16]
  3. ^ Not to be confused with Fountain Court, Temple, London.
  4. ^ A Crown corporation is a firm established by a state or government, partially run by civil servants. The term "crown corporation" is most common in Commonwealth countries such as Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.[29]
  5. ^ Other directors of the Holborn Land Company in 1904 included Charles Morley (MP for Breconshire and Honorary Secretary of the Royal College of Music). See also John Haigh, the "Acid Bath Murderer", who sold fraudulent shares of the company in c.1934.[31]
  6. ^ F. G. Fedden joined the Institute of Chartered Accountants in 1892.[46] A later business address was 108a Cannon Street, London EC4.[47] He lived at "Four Winds", Cleeve, Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.[48] He was the son of S. Fedden, Ealing. He was an ice skater with Wimbledon Skating Team, won medals etc.
Citations
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lloyd 2005, p. 2.
  2. ^ "The History of Bristol Uniforms 1801–2014" (PDF). p. 2. Retrieved 1 July 2024.
  3. ^ a b Lloyd 2005, pp. 1–2.
  4. ^ a b Penney, John (July 2018). "South Gloucestershire Compendium 1914 to 1918" (PDF). pp. 200–202. Retrieved 28 June 2024.
  5. ^ Pearce, T. D. K, ed. (2006). "Index to Local History Records and Bulletins" (PDF). The Bourne Society. p. 109 [pdf 116]. Retrieved 28 June 2024.
  6. ^ "View of the house and grounds at Essendene seen from the south". Historic England. Retrieved 28 June 2024.
  7. ^ "Purchasing Power of British Pounds from 1270 to Present". Measuring Worth. Retrieved 28 June 2024.
  8. ^ a b c d e f "Death of Mr Henry John Gardiner". Tamworth Herald. 10 February 1940. p. 5c.
  9. ^ a b c Lloyd 2005, p. 3.
  10. ^ a b Murray, S. S. (1922). A Handbook of Nyasaland. London: Published for the Government of Nyasaland by The Crown Agents for the Colonies. p. Advertisements xxix [pdf 392].
  11. ^ The Boston Directory, Volume 64. Boston, MA: Sampson & Murdock Company. 1868. p. 693.
  12. ^ ChangingCity (10 January 2019). "821 Powell Street". Changing Vancouver - then and now. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
  13. ^ Mallandaine, Edward (ed.). British Columbia Directory, 1887 (PDF). Victoria, BC: E. Mallaindaine and R. T. Williams. p. [pdf 376].
  14. ^ "Port Adelaide". uboat.net. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  15. ^ Whitall, G. W. (2014). "The Whitall Family in the 18th & 19th Centuries and Associated Families" (PDF). Edited by John Whittall. Levantine Heritage Foundation. pp. 91–92.
  16. ^ "BT 365 - Board of Trade and successors: War Risks Insurance Records: First World War claim settlements". National Archives. Retrieved 1 July 2024. Record No. BT 365/6/6 "Steamer: Port Adelaide. Nature of goods: Cotton and Woolen Goods. Value: £285. Payment to: Chandler, Hargreaves, Whittall and Company. Assured: H J Gardiner and Company. Date of Settlement: 23/02/1917". [a]
  17. ^ a b c "1914 Who's Who in Business: Company B: Bradbury, Greatorex & Co. Ltd". Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Retrieved 14 June 2024.
  18. ^ a b Henderson, John S. (29 February 1988). "Guildhall Historical Association Papers 1980 to 1989: The City's Textile Industry". pp. 5–7. Retrieved 14 June 2024.
  19. ^ Baddeley 1922, p. 250.
  20. ^ Baddeley 1922, p. 312.
  21. ^ Baddeley 1922, p. 47-8, 49 [pdf 73].
  22. ^ a b "Bradbury Greatorex & Co. Ltd". COSGB. 5 March 2011. Retrieved 14 June 2024.
  23. ^ "No. 49858". The London Gazette. 4 September 1984. p. 12039.
  24. ^ Charterhouse register, 1872-1910, Volume 2. London: Printed for the Proprietors at the Chiswick Press. 1911. p. 495. Gardiner, Alan Henderson. b. 29 March, 1879: 2 S. of Henry J. Gardiner, of Eltham
  25. ^ "pope-street" Minutes of proceedings of the Metropolitan Board of Works, January-June 1886. 1857. pp. 1177, 278. Plumstead. — Read a Report by the Superintending Architect, dated 22nd June, 1886, on the application of Mr. H. J. Gardiner, for the permission of the Board to retain, for a further period, the temporary wood and iron Mission-hall erected at Pope-street, Eltham.
  26. ^ "River Shuttle - flowing to the Cray. New Eltham". Edith's Streets. January 24, 2010. Retrieved 28 June 2024.
  27. ^ "All Saints (aka Pope Street Mission Hall), New Eltham". Genuki. Retrieved 28 June 2024.
  28. ^ "Nyasaland (Economic Development)". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Vol. 526. House of Commons. 15 April 1954. col. 1358–1375.
  29. ^ "Crown Corporation: Overview, Types, Special Consideration". Investopedia. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  30. ^ "Our Office Table". The Building News and Engineering Journal. 28: 646a. January–June 1875.
  31. ^ Oates, Jonathan (2014). John George Haigh, the Acid-Bath Murderer: A Portrait of a Serial Killer and His Victims. Wharncliffe. ISBN 9781783462148.
  32. ^ a b "Kingsbury Collieries Ltd". Durham Mining Museum. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
  33. ^ Sessional Papers, Vol. L, Part III. Fourth Session of the Fourteenth Legislature of the Province of Ontario, 1918. Toronto: A. T. Wilgress. 1918. p. A 15.
  34. ^ Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping, Volume 2. London: Wyman and Sons. 1906. p. 903.
  35. ^ "No. 31230". The London Gazette. 14 March 1919. p. 3477.
  36. ^ Royal Academy Illustrated. London: Walter Judd. 1884. p. 92 [pdf 140].
  37. ^ "Reports of Masonic Meetings: Royal Somerset House and Inverness Chapter (No. 4)" (PDF). The Freemason. XIX (890): 186. 27 March 1886.
  38. ^ "Royal Arch: Supreme Grand Chapter" (PDF). Freemason's Chronicle. XLIX (1266): 197. 29 April 1899.
  39. ^ "Letter from Henry J. Gardiner to Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker". Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. Retrieved 1 July 2024.
  40. ^ "Letter from H. J. Gardiner & Co to George Nicholson". Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
  41. ^ Journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London (PDF). Vol. 44. London: John Murray. 1874. p. xliv [pdf 52].
  42. ^ "M.S. Johnston album 1 - index, GA 'Carreck Archive', page 83". British Geological Society. NB click on 'Page 83' for scan of the page; Gardiner's signature appears on 3rd line down, 2nd from left.
  43. ^ "Recent Acquisitions at the Natural History Museum". Nature. 37 (3461): 355–356. 29 February 1936. Bibcode:1936Natur.137T.355.. doi:10.1038/137355d0.
  44. ^ "BM number: Am.7184 - Medicine Mask". British Museum. Retrieved 1 July 2024. "The image will be released to you under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license."
  45. ^ "BM number: Am1910,0608.6. Vase; vessel". Retrieved 1 July 2024. Black burnished pottery vase with three spouts. Broken, fragile. 5.5 cm height, 6 cm diameter. Found/acquired in Nicaragua
  46. ^ The Institute of Chartered Accountants: List of members, 1904, Royal charter and bye-laws. 1904. p. 233. Feb. 1892: Fedden, Frank Gardiner, (Bryden, Fedden & Co.), 23 Bucklersbury, E.C.
  47. ^ Repton School register: supplement to 1910 edition (PDF). Old Reptonian Society. 1922. p. 91 [pdf 127].
  48. ^ British Archaeological Association Officers and Council and List of Associates 1935. Second Series. Vol. 40. 1935. doi:10.1080/00681288.1935.11893723.

Bibliography

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