Painter, notably of landscape, and teacher, born in Reading, Berkshire, winning a scholarship to its University, also studying at Patrick Allan-Fraser School of Art, Hospitalfield, Arbroath, having on leaving school been apprenticed to a decorator. Gardiner taught for a time at University College in Reading and also worked and taught in America, returning to England in World War I to enrol. In the mid-1920s he moved to Lamorna, near Penzance, Cornwall, where initially he endured poverty, although eventually he began to exhibit widely and ran his own small painting school from home. He was elected an associate of RWS and a member of the New Society of Artists, also showing at Fine Art Society, RWA, Irish Salon, RA, Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and Berkshire Art Society.