General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...

Sir Robert William Gardiner (2 May 1781 – 26 June 1864) was

Master Gunner, St James's Park The Master Gunner St James’s Park’s appointment goes back to 1678 and has generally been held by a senior officer in the Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially k ...

, the most senior Ceremonial Post in the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

after the

Sovereign ''Sovereign'' is a title which can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin , meaning 'above'. The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or ...

Military career

Educated at the

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of Sig ...

, Gardiner was commissioned into the

on 7 April 1797 and that October was sent to Gibraltar, which was under partial blockade by the French fleet.Robert Gardiner at Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
/ref> In November 1798 he was present at the Capture of Minorca under Charles Stuart. The following May he was appointed to the staff of the island's Mosquito Fort, where the French General Duc de Crillon had landed in 1782, and subsequently became '' aide-de-camp'' to General Henry Fox. Following the 1802

Treaty of Amiens The Treaty of Amiens (french: la paix d'Amiens, ) temporarily ended hostilities between France and the United Kingdom at the end of the War of the Second Coalition The War of the Second Coalition (1798/9 – 1801/2, depending on perio ...

he returned to England, was promoted to second-captain in 1804 and the following year commanded 12 guns in an advance corps under Lieutenant-General George Don as part of

Cathcart Cathcart ( sco, Kithcart, gd, Coille Chart)
is an are ...

and Count Tolstoy's campaign in North Germany. The force advanced as far as

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

before the

Battle of Austerlitz The Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805/11 Frimaire An XIV FRC), also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Austerlitz in ...

forced their return home. He joined the Marquis of Wellington's Army in 1812 and commanded a Field Battery at the

Battle of Salamanca The Battle of Salamanca (in French and Spanish known as the Battle of Arapiles) on 22July 1812 was a battle in which an Anglo-Portuguese army under the Earl of Wellington defeated Marshal Auguste Marmont's French forces at Arapiles, so ...

, the Capture of

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

and the

Siege of Burgos At the siege of Burgos, from 19 September to 21 October 1812, the Anglo-Portuguese Army led by General Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington tried to capture the castle of Burgos from its French garrison under the command of General of ...

where with several of his men he volunteered for the trenches. In 1813 he took command of ''E Troop''

Royal Horse Artillery The Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) was formed in 1793 as a distinct arm of the Royal Regiment of Artillery (commonly termed Royal Artillery) to provide horse artillery support to the cavalry units of the British Army. (Although the cavalry link ...

and fought at the

Battle of Vitoria At the Battle of Vitoria (21 June 1813) a British, Portuguese and Spanish army under the Marquess of Wellington broke the French army under King Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan near Vitoria in Spain, eventually leading to ...

, the

Battle of Orthez The Battle of Orthez (27 February 1814) saw the Anglo-Spanish-Portuguese Army under Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington attack an Imperial French army led by Marshal Nicolas Soult in southern France. The outnumbered Fr ...

and the Battle of Toulouse. During the 1815 Corn Law Riots in London his troop helped to restore order then later that year he went to the Southern

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. At

Quatre Bras Quatre Bras (, French for crossroads; literally "four arms") is a hamlet in the municipality of Genappe, Wallonia, Belgium. It lies on the crossroad of the Charleroi-Brussels road (currently named N5) and the Nivelles-Namur road south of Genappe ...

"His troop was most severely pressed in covering the left of the army on the retreat" then on the 18th he commanded his troop at the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...

. He became Principal

Equerry An equerry (; from French ' stable', and related to 'squire') is an officer of honour. Historically, it was a senior attendant with responsibilities for the horses of a person of rank. In contemporary use, it is a personal attendant, usually up ...

to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in 1816 and remained in that role until 1831. He was also '' aide-de-camp'' to the successive monarchs

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...

and

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

. He held the position of

from 1840. He was appointed

Governor of Gibraltar The governor of Gibraltar is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. The governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the British government. The role of the governor is to act as the ...

in 1848 and died in

Esher Esher ( ) is a town in Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole. Esher is an outlying suburb of London near the London-Surrey Border, and with Esher Commons at its southern end, the town marks one limit of the Greater London Built-Up ...

, Surrey on 26 June 1864.

Family

He was the youngest son of Captain John Gardiner of the 3rd Buffs and the brother of Lieutenant-General Sir John Gardiner, Colonel-in-Chief of the 61st Foot. In 1816 Gardiner married Caroline Mary McLeod, eldest daughter of Lieutenant-General John Macleod and they had issue.

References

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Gardiner, Robert 1781 births 1864 deaths British Army generals Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Royal Artillery officers Recipients of the Order of St. Anna, 2nd class British Army personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars