Alan Hyde Gardner, 2nd Baron Gardner KCB (5 February 1770 – 22 December 1815), was a British admiral.

Naval career

Born the son of Admiral

Alan Gardner, 1st Baron Gardner Admiral Alan Gardner, 1st Baron Gardner (12 February 1742 – 1 January 1809), was a British Royal Navy officer and peer of the realm. He was regarded by some as one of the Georgian era's most dashing frigate captains and, ultimately, a respecte ...

, he followed his father into the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

. In 1796 he was captain of the frigate , in 1802 he was captain of ''Resolution'', and in 1805 of the

74-gun The "seventy-four" was a type of two- decked sailing ship of the line, which nominally carried 74 guns. It was developed by the French navy in the 1740s, replacing earlier classes of 60- and 62-gun ships, as a larger complement to the recently-de ...

– in the latter he was present at the action off Ferrol in 1805, and led the vanguard at the Battle of Cape Finisterre later that year. In 1815 it was announced that he was to be created a

viscount A viscount ( , for male) or viscountess (, for female) is a title used in certain European countries for a noble of varying status. In many countries a viscount, and its historical equivalents, was a non-hereditary, administrative or judicia ...

, but he died before the

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

had passed the Great Seal. He passed on the title of

Baron Gardner Baron Gardner, of Uttoxeter, is a dormant title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1800 for Sir Alan Gardner, an Admiral of the Blue and former Member of Parliament for Plymouth and Westminster. In 1806, he was also created Baron Ga ...

to his son, Alan.

Marriage and issue

#His first marriage was on 9 March 1796 to Maria Elizabeth Adderley, the daughter of Thomas Adderley and his wife Margaretta Bourke, later Baroness Hobart (d. 1796), and stepdaughter since 1792 of Robert, Baron Hobart, the future

Secretary of State for War and the Colonies The Secretary of State for War and the Colonies was a British cabinet-level position responsible for the army and the British colonies (other than India). The Secretary was supported by an Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. Hi ...

1801–04. The couple divorced in 1805, after Lord Gardner discovered his wife's adultery and secret delivery of a child in June 1803, and brought about an ecclesiastical suit followed by an Act of Parliament, citing her adultery with a Henry Jadis (the father of her son born in 1803, Henry Fenton Gardner, who was declared illegitimate by the House of Lords in 1825). According to the Treatise on Adulterine Bastardy, the divorced Mrs Gardner married her lover immediately afterwards, and they raised Henry Fenton as their own child and with the Jadis surname. #His second marriage (as 2nd Baron Gardner) was on 10 April 1809 to Charlotte Elizabeth Smith (d. 27 March 1811), third daughter of

Robert Smith, 1st Baron Carrington Robert Smith, 1st Baron Carrington (22 January 1752 – 18 September 1838), was a British banker and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1779 to 1797 when he was raised to the peerage. Early life Smith was the third son of Abel Sm ...

, and his wife Anne Boldero-Barnard. The couple had one son Alan (29 January 1810 – 2 November 1883) and one daughter, Hon. Charlotte Susannah Gardner (29 December 1810 – 15 August 1859), m. 1835 Edward Vernon Harbord, 4th Lord Suffield (1813–1853) without issue. These children were "Irish twins" (born in the same calendar year, and within twelve months of each other); Lady Gardner died three months later. The 2nd Baron Gardner inherited his father's barony and baronetcy in 1809. He died 1815, leaving legitimate issue. Efforts were made in 1824 to seat his son as a peer, and to ensure that Fenton Gardner (son of Lord Gardner's first wife) would not inherit the peerage. The subsequent proceeding in the House of Lords established that Alan Legge Gardner was the 3rd Baron Gardner, and that his (alleged) half-brother was in fact illegitimate. The proceedings heard evidence from domestic servants and also medical practitioners, testifying to the possible lengths of human gestation; the medical evidence also received an eccentric contemporary commentary by Robert Lyall. This commentary includes an science-fictional experiment to calculate the exact length of human gestation, which Lyall calls the Experimental Conception Hospital.

References

External links

The Peerage

Links to the evidence and other resources for studying the Gardner Peerage dispute 1825-6
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gardner, Alan Gardner, 2nd Baron 1770 births 1815 deaths Royal Navy admirals Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Barons in the Peerage of Ireland Eldest sons of British hereditary barons