The Complete

Illustrated History

of the

Gardiners

 

 

 

Part I Chapter 2: James and Sarah Gardiner, Samuel and Sarah Gardiner

 

 

 

The Basic Facts

 

The earliest known Gardiner ancestors to live in Liverpool are James and Sarah but very little is known for certain about them beyond the fact that in 1811 they gave birth to and baptised a son called Henry in the village of Goodrich, Herefordshire. James was the illegitimate son of Edward Gardiner of Whitchurch and his mistress (later wife) Mary Hodges. In trying to reconstruct the history of the Gardiners between 1811 and the 1830s we have to rely on the following basic information:

 

 

Links between James (Biscuit Maker) and Henry (Joiner)

 

·              James Gardiner (the biscuit baker) was born in Goodrich or Whitchurch in or around 1813

 

·              James stated that his father was a baker (later a ‘merchant’) called James

 

·              Henry was a grocer and tea dealer as well as a joiner

 

·              James was a witness to Henry Gardiner’s will

 

·              James’ first son was called James Henry

 

·              According to Mrs Pat Gardener family tradition confirms that they were brothers

 

 

BMD Records

 

·              A Penelope Gardiner aged 2, daughter of James (flour dealer, Sparling Street) and Sarah was buried in St Paul, Liverpool 17.11.1816

 

·              She was reinterred shortly afterwards with a Harriet Gardiner whose abode was Wapping.

 

·              A James Gardiner of Wapping died of apoplexy in 1837, aged 57.

 

·              A Sarah Gardiner died in Liverpool in late 1844 and another in (Sep)1849.

 

·              A Jane Gardiner died in Liverpool in (Dec)1852

 

·              No record of a marriage between James and Sarah in Herefordshire or Lancashire has been found

 

·              No Gardiner-Martin marriage has been found for Lancashire

 

 

Street Directories

 

James Gardiner is listed at the following addresses:

 

·              1818: baker, at 25 Dickenson Street

 

·              1824: ‘Gardner James M. wine and spirit merchant, &c. h. 74, Duke st.’ – the same business as ‘Gardner and Harding, wine and spirit merchts. and agents to the Harford and Bristol Brass Company, 1, Trafford lane’

 

·              1825: James Gardiner, Wine Merchant at 84 Duke St (an address later occupied by James the Biscuit Maker)

 

·              1827: baker and Provision Dealer at 4 Kitchen Street (James Makin Gardner, wine merchant, was at 74 Duke Street)

 

·              1834: biscuit and ship bread baker, 34 Wapping (Pigot’s)

 

·              1835: grocer, provision dealer, ship bread baker, 34 Wapping

 

·              1837: grocer and provision dealer, 34 Wapping

 

James (the biscuit baker) is listed as James jnr below James of Wapping in 1835 and 1837 but not thereafter

 

There was a business called Sarah Gardiner and Son (Grocers) listed at 61 Wapping from 1839 to 1847 when it moved to 55 South Castle Street (see below for full details). A Sarah Gardiner was at 32 St Anne Street according to Slater’s, 1844 directory.

 

 

Baptism Records

 

The following children were born to parents called James and Sarah Gardiner in Liverpool:

 

·              Harriot 3.7 / 20.10.1816 St. Mark’s, Duke Street – father a baker of Liverpool

 

·              Edward 4.11.1818 St. Peter’s – father a baker of Toxteth Park

 

·              Harriet Jane 21.2 / 6.5.1821 Pitt St. Wesleyan Chapel – mother Sarah (late James)

 

·              Samuel 25.1 / 2.3.1823 Pitt St. Wesleyan Chapel

 

·              Sarah 14.4 / 8.5.1827 St. Peter’s – father a provision dealer

 

·              Edward 8.6.1829 St. Peter’s – father a provision dealer of Kitchen Street

 

 

No certain record of baptism has been found for either James

 

A Sarah James was born to William and Anne and baptised in Whitchurch on 10.11.1776. A person of the same name was buried in the parish in 1805. Another was baptised in Ross on Wye on 28th December 1788 by Samuel and Martha and a Sarah James daughter of James Morgan (?) and Rachel in January 1779 in Trevethin, Monmouth.

 

A Sarah James was baptised at St. Peter's in Liverpool in 1783

 

 

Census Data

 

·              In 1841 James (biscuit maker) was living with a boy called Edward Gardiner, aged 14, who was apparently not his son

 

·              In 1841 in Wapping we find a provision dealer, Jane (56) and (nephew and niece) Samuel (18) and Sarah (14) Gardiner

 

·              In 1851 the same three are at South Castle Street and Jane is an unmarried lady from (?) Monmouth, aged 68.

 

·              No suitable James or Sarah has been found in the 1841 (or 1851) census in Liverpool or Herefordshire

 

 

Other Facts

 

·              According to a family tradition Henry and James left Herefordshire c1813-15 with their family on a ‘caravan trek’ – Henry told his granddaughter Emma who told Queenie who passed it on to her cousin Pat.

 

·              Henry (Builder) had children called Edward, Samuel and Sarah

 

·              James (Biscuit maker) had a daughter called Jane

 

·              Samuel and Sarah were the children of James Gardiner, a merchant

 

·              Sarah was the aunt of Alicia, James junior’s daughter

 

·              The Liverpool Poll Book of 1832 records one Gardener (Joseph Gardener, Merchant, Hill Street), two Gardiners (Henry Gardiner, Agent, Alfred Street E&T and William Gardiner, Publican, Regent Street) and seventeen Gardners including James M. Gardner (Wine Merchant, Duke Street) and Henry (Merchant, King Street, Soho).

 

·              Captain Henry Gardiner, James’ brother, is thought to have run a Grocers and Provision Dealers for many years, first at 2 Lower Sparling Street (1813-7) then also, assuming it is the same man in each case, at 21 (1816), 20 (1818), 25 (1821) and later 32 and 35 Wapping (1820-29/1832). Baines 1824 Liverpool Name Directory lists both Gardiner Henry, American merchant, 51, Upper Islington and Gardiner Henry, grocer and provision dealer 32, Wapping – so they could be two different people or simply two businesses. We can note that in the same Directory there was a ‘Gardiner Samuel, mercht. 51, Upper Islington’ presumably some connection with Henry but not the son of James who was not born till 1823. Henry continued to trade with America and the Middle East, was a published author and emigrated to Ontario in the 1830s (see Part I Ch 1.4).

 

·              A partnership between J. B. Hodgson and C. Gardiner, wholesale tea dealers, was dissolved in March 1838.

 

 

Mercury 16.3.1838

 

·              In 1834 a James Gardiner was a signatory to a letter regarding divisions within the Methodist community; the letter indicated that James had been a member of the Methodist Association for 16 years and a leader for 12 years.

 

 

Mercury 28.11.1834

 

·              From 1824-1839 a Sarah Gardner was living at 17 White Mill St. running a boarding house.

 

·              An Anne Gardner, dressmaker, aged 37 in 1851, from Herefordshire was lodging with her apparently blind 19-year-old daughter Maria in the house of a Sarah [Barend] in Bute Street, Everton. Was she related to James and Henry? She was still alive in 1881, a widow of 57a Netherfield Rd South, Everton, but is recorded as being only 61! On balance she is probably not a relative.

 

 

There is no reason to link this 1851 Herefordshire Gardner with James and Sarah

 

 

A Possible Reconstruction

 

Using the information detailed above and family traditions passed down through Queenie Griffiths, we can offer the following as a working hypothesis which can be tested against any new data that is found. It assumes that Henry, James, Samuel and Sarah were all the children of the same James and Sarah Gardiner, a view based on James’ birth in Herefordshire, the description of their father as a ‘merchant’ by James, Sarah and Samuel in the 1860s, the recurrence of the same names in the family and the fact that James was a witness to Henry’s will. That James and Henry were brothers is confirmed by family tradition.

 

  Liverpool Docks in 1829

 

 The Move to Liverpool

 

James, along with wife Sarah and children Henry, James and Penelope, seems to have moved to Liverpool by 1816 - his son Henry told his granddaughter Emma Gardiner (later Griffiths) that he remembered coming up in a ‘caravan trek’. Apparently he came in search of business opportunities since he did not want to be a miller. It is probable that there was a connection to the Henry Gardiner who was a Grocers and Provision Dealers, first at 2 Lower Sparling Street (1813-7) then also at 21 (1816), 20 (1818) and later 32 and 35 Wapping (1820-29/1832) and it may be that the Captain encouraged his brother to join him in Lancashire where he had set up as a grocer on the waterfront. This link is based on the presence of both of them in Wapping as well as the 1816 reference to James as a flour dealer of Sparling Street, an address also inhabited by Henry. James seems to have branched out on his own as a baker, provision dealer and possibly wine merchant but there is a possibility that James took over from Henry the grocer of Wapping since the two do not seem to have operated there at the same time.

 

 

Baptism of Harriot in 1813

 

James, a baker, had a daughter Harriot (sic) on July 3rd 1816; she was baptised on 20.10.1816 in St. Mark’s, Duke Street but sadly in November of the same year both Harriet and her sister Penelope died. Penelope had died aged 2 years three months and had been interred in St. Paul’s on 17th but was removed from there and reinterred in St. Mary’s, Edge Hill, with Harriet on 30th. James must have moved house between the two deaths as Penelope’s abode was given as Sparling Street, Park Lane while Harriet’s was Wapping.

 

 

A double burial in November 1816 – Harriet and Penelope

 

 

 

Left: The elegant St. Paul’s Church

Right: St Mary, Edge Hill in 1829

 

A son, Edward, was baptised on 4.11.1818 in St. Peter’s. In that year James was listed at 25 Dickenson Street which might fit with the baptismal record that he was a baker of Toxteth Park. The next daughter was given the names Harriet Jane. Her baptism in Pitt Street Wesleyan Chapel might suggest a conversion to Methodism (the Captain’s family in Canada were Wesleyans) and the letter to the Mercury of 1834 supports this but it would not be consistent with the baptism of Sarah and Edward in St. Peter’s. Later baptisms, however, were in Anglican churches. The record does not give any details of James’ occupation or address but we know that Samuel (baptised there in 1823) and Sarah, baptised by James, a provision dealer, in St. Peter’s in 1827, were brother and sister so we can be fairly confident that it is the same couple. In 1827 he was listed as a baker and provision dealer at 4 Kitchen Street and when he baptised his last known son, Edward, in summer 1829 he was described as a provision dealer of Kitchen Street (presumably the earlier Edward had died – the younger is found in 1841 but neither is found in 1851) We next find him as a biscuit and ship bread baker and grocer and provision dealer at various sites in Wapping in the mid 1830s, listed above his son, James Gardiner jnr of Liver Street. By 1835 there are two James Gardiners - both Grocers, Provision Dealers and Biscuit and Ship Bread Bakers, the former at 34 Wapping, the latter - James junior - at 6 Liver Street. 1837 finds James snr at 33 Wapping but in 1839 James senior is not listed and James (junior) is at 11 Liver St. James (junior) described his father as a ‘merchant’ – which may imply a business of some significance if it is not simply pure snobbery.

 

It is, of course, possible that we are dealing with more than one family with parents James and Sarah Gardiner - they are not uncommon names as we have seen. We are certain that Henry (a joiner) and James (a biscuit baker) were connected since the latter witnessed the former's will and both were born in Goodrich and we can track James back to Liver Street in 1835. James of Liver St. can be linked to James of Wapping by the use of 'snr' and 'jnr' in the directories and the description of his father as a ‘baker’. If Sarah and Samuel of 1841 are those born to James and Sarah, this links James and Sarah James (Pitt Street Chapel) with James and Sarah (provision dealer) of Kitchen Street and St. Peter’s. Sarah was in fact undoubtedly the sister of James the biscuit maker as his daughter Alicia was listed as her niece in 1901. James of Wapping can only be identified with James of Kitchen Street (who was married to Sarah) by the presence in Wapping in the 1841 Census of a Sarah and Samuel who fit the ages of the children born to James and Sarah but Sarah snr has not been found in 1841. In fact, James disappears from the directories between 1827 and 1834 - did he perhaps join Henry of Wapping, or are there two different people? Henry the joiner's parents were called James and Sarah - hence claim that James of Kitchen Street was Henry's father. The reconstruction offered here is therefore speculative, but consistent with most of the available information.

 

 

James’ Death 

 

We know that a James Gardiner, provision dealer of 42 Wapping, died of apoplexy (probably a stroke) aged 57 in Liverpool on November 9th 1837. The informant (on 10th November) for the death his friend James Doyle of 21 Jamaica Street (in 1841 a publican in Lwr Sparling St.); if James was the father of four sons, it is odd that none of them informed the authorities - were they too upset or too busy? After this only James junior appears in the directories and there is no other James Gardiner of the right age in the 1841 census. By the time of James' death the family had split up with James junior married to Anne and living with brother with Edward, Henry married with a son and daughter and Samuel and Sarah living with their aunt Jane. Sarah may have continued her late husband's business for some time, though she seems to have died by 1841.

 

 

The 1837 Death Certificate for James Gardiner

 

A James Gardner died in Liverpool in (Dec)1839 but that might be the son of James and Ann. In 1841 there were four James Gard*ners in Liverpool apart from James and Ann in Great Charlotte Street: James and Dorothy Gardener (30 / 25, fruit dealer of Great Homer Street), James Gardner (Irish mariner, 12, Webster Court, New Bird Street), James Gardiner (20, occupation unclear, of Kitchen Street) and James Gardener (18, servant, of Trowbridge Street). Clearly none of these can be Henry’s father or the parent of any of the children baptised between 1816 and 1829.

 

 

Sarah Gardiner and Son

 

It seems that James’ wife Sarah continued her husband’s business with the help of her son Samuel, sister-in-law Jane and daughter Sarah while James ran his own separate concern a short distance away. Sarah Gardiner and Son (Grocers) is listed at 61 Wapping from 1839 to 1847 and then at 55 South Castle Street. As yet this Sarah has not been found in the 1841 census but she appears to have been residing in St. Anne Street in 1844. A Sarah Gardiner (age unknown) died in late 1844 and another in late 1849; she is not found in the 1851 census but the business was known as S. Gardiner and Son as late as 1860. 1851 has a Sarah (49) and Alice (47) Gardner, shop keepers in Great Homer Street, Everton, but born in Askholme, Lancs, so obviously no connection to the Whitchurch Gardiners. No other Sarah Gardiners can be found in any sort of similar trade.

 

 

Samuel and Sarah Gardiner

 

Gore’s lists the business of Sarah Gardiner and Son, Grocers of 61 Wapping, between 1839 and 1847 (when it was also described as a navy provisions dealer. In Wapping in 1841 were a Jane Gardiner, (age 56 or perhaps 54, 50 or even 59 and probably born elsewhere) and Sarah (14) and Samuel (18) all provision dealers – but no Sarah old enough to be the proprietor. No other Sarah Gardiner has been found in the city. It is very probable that Sam and Sarah (born in Liverpool around 1823 and 1827) were the children of James and Sarah referred to above and that Jane was the sister of James since she is later listed as Samuel’s aunt. In 1847 and ‘48 Sarah Gardiner and Son are listed as Spirit Merchants and Navy Provisions at 55 South Castle Street but this conflicts with a death for Sarah in 1844 as noted above. Presumably the name of the company was retained after the death of the original Sarah and was run by her son Samuel.

 

 

 

Jane, Sarah and Samuel Gardiner in Wapping in 1841

 

In 1851 Samuel Gardiner (28, from Liverpool) is listed in the census (2180/3 524) as a Spirit Merchant at 55 South Castle Street (the index gives his name as 'Gardine' but Gore's for that year has Samuel Gardiner, Wine and Spirit Merchant at 55 South Castle Street - he is the Samuel of 'Sarah and Son'). This Samuel was living with his maiden aunt, Jane (68, possibly from Monmouth) and Sarah, apparently his sister aged 2, though it seems that this is an error for 24. Jane probably died in late 1852.

 

 

Samuel, Jane and Sarah Gardiner in 1851

 

In March 1856 Mr. Gardiner had to prosecute three former employers for breaking into his premises and they were committed for trial on 27th March. By 1859-60 the business is listed at Mersey View, 61 Canning Street, Birkenhead, and 2 New Quay.

 

 

 

The report of the burglary at Samuel’s premises in New Quay (Mercury 28.3.1856)

 

The 1861 census (2686 31-2) has a Samuel (a 33 year old unmarried ships' merchant from Liverpool) living with his unmarried sister, Sarah, 30, and nieces Sarah A. and Mary Martin (20 and 8 or 5) plus a servant. Clearly these ages are inaccurate but it is obviously the same pair, and the listing in Gore’s for 1862 – 18 Sandon Street – supports this.

 

 

Samuel and Sarah in 1861 – lying about their ages?

 

On August 4th 1863 Sarah, a 36 year old spinster of Sandon Street married in St. Brides to 44 year old Lancaster Timber Merchant Charles Blades, widowed son of Charles, a gentleman. Sarah’s father was James Gardiner, a merchant, and one of the witnesses was her brother Samuel. One wonders how the couple met.

 

 

Sarah’s marriage to Charles Blades in 1863

 

In 1864 Samuel was listed as 'ship owner and provisions merchant' of 2 New Quay and Sandon St. but at some point he moved to Crosby in the Parish of Sefton where he continued in business as a merchant according to his wedding certificate. On 12th August 1867 he married Mary Brockbank in Holy Trinity, St. Anne Street; she was a 26-year-old spinster of Nelson Street, the daughter of James Brockbank, a builder, and he was a 45-year-old bachelor, son of James, a merchant. Mary was probably baptised on November 2nd 1840 in St. Peter’s by James (a joiner of Field Street) and his wife Jane. (We might note that Samuel’s niece Alicia married a William Brockbank in 1908 – perhaps simply a coincidence). 

 

 

Mary Brockbank’s baptism in November 1840

 

 

Mary in 1841 aged 2 months

 

 

Samuel and Mary’s wedding

 

By 1870 the company - and Samuel - have ceased to appear in the street directory and he is not found in 1871 or 1881; no record of his death or of a will has been found between 1864 and 1881 so we cannot at present say what happened to Samuel. A Mary Gardiner (married, aged 30, from Liverpool) is found living alone as ‘head’ at 10 Blanche Street in West Derby but no further information about her is given.

 

 

Is this Samuel’s wife?

 

Sarah (43, Liverpool) and Charles Blades were living at 12 Dalton Square in Lancaster. She had obviously made a good catch as he was a builder / surveyor with a large concern employing 64 men and 19 boys. He was born in Aysgarth around 1818, son of Charles, a native of Yorkshire and who was living with them.

 

 

Charles and Sarah in 1871

 

In 1881 they were living in Caton near Lancaster; she was aged 53, her husband 63, a builder employing six, or possibly sixteen, men and boys – it seems he had had to ‘downsize’ the business since 1871!

 

 

The Blades in 1881

 

In 1891 they are found at Parkfield, South Road in Lancaster – he was a 73 year old timber merchant, she was 63 and they were wealthy enough to have three servants.

 

 

The Blades in 1891

 

Ten years later in 1901 Sarah was still at Parkfield in the Scotforth district of Lancaster, a widow aged 73 living on her own means. The interesting thing to note is that her niece Alicia Gardner (26, Liverpool) was living with her. Since Alicia was the daughter of James this confirms conclusively that Samuel, Sarah, James and Henry were all the children of the same James Gardiner.

 

 

Sarah and Alicia in 1901

 

Sarah died in (Apr)1908 in the Lancaster district.

 

 

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Copyright © 2012 by David Favager. All rights reserved.