MEMOIR 
OF 
GENERAL SIR ROBERT WILLIAM GARDINER, G.C.B., K.C.H. 
[COMMUNICATED BY THE SECRETARY, R.A.I.] 
General Sir Robert Gardiner, G.C.B. of tbe Royal Artillery, was the second 
son of Captain John Gardiner (3rd Buffs) and Mary, daughter of Jonathan Allison, 
Esq., of Middleton, County Durham, and was younger brother of the late Lieut.- 
General Sir John Gardiner. He was born May 2, 1781, joined the Royal Military 
Academy, Woolwich, in 1795, and obtained his commission in the Royal Artillery 
April 7, 1797. 
In October, 1797, Lieutenant Gardiner was sent to Gibraltar, then partially 
blockaded by the Erench and Spanish fleets, and remained there till November, 
1798, when he embarked with the expedition under Sir Charles Stuart, and was 
present at the capture of Minorca. In May, 1799, he was appointed on the Staff 
in Minorca as Commandant of Mosquito Fort (the point where the Duke de Crillon 
had landed in 1782), and shortly afterwards became aide-de-camp to the general 
commanding, the Hon. Henry Eox, brother to the great Whig leader. He returned 
to England on the evacuation of Minorca at the peace of Amiens in 1802. 
Promoted to second captain in 1804, Captain Gardiner in 1805 commanded 
12 guns with the force under Lieutenant-General Don, forming the advanced corps 
of the army destined to serve under Lord Cathcart in the north of Germany, com¬ 
bined with the Russian army under Count Tolstoy. The allied armies advanced as 
far as Hanover, when the result of the battle of Austerlitz put an end to the 
campaign, and the British troops returned home, their unmolested embarkation 
being stipulated for by the treaty of Presburg. Captain Gardiner immediately 
effected an exchange in order to join Sir John Stewart’s force employed against the 
Erench in Sicily, where he arrived shortly after the battle of Maida. On Sir John 
being relieved by General Eox, Captain Gardiner again joined the Staff of the latter, 
and, when General Eox returned home, was appointed aide-de-camp to Sir John 
Moore. 
In 1807 the army left Sicily for the purpose of landing in Portugal, but being 
detained by contrary winds, only reached Lisbon to find that the Royal family, 
whose cause it was to have assisted, had sailed for the Brazils, and the force 
returned to England. Early in 1808, when Sir John Moore was named to the 
command of the expedition to Sweden, he repeatedly applied to Lord Chatham, 
then Master-General of the Ordnance, to be allowed to take Captain Gardiner on 
his personal Staff, but the regulations of the Corps at that time not allowing 
artillery officers from home stations to be employed on the Staff, these applications 
did not meet with success, and on Sir John’s departure for Sweden Captain 
[vol. iv.] b 
