John Stanley Gardiner was born 24 January 1872, in Belfast, the younger son of the two children of the Reverend John Jephson Gardiner of Trinity College, Dublin. His father became Rector of Black Torrington, in Devonshire, a pleasant country village with a nearby trout-stream where the young Gardiner acquired an early love of fishing which remained with him throughout his life. Here he also became a reasonably good shot which proved of value to him when on his expeditions abroad, whether for the collection of specimens or for food. There is no record of his first schooling which begins with his entry in January 1885 to Marlborough College. Here, although he won a prize for English literature and one for science and a laboratory prize, he did not have an outstanding school career in the strict scholastic sense and did not reach the sixth form. On the other hand it was at Marlborough that the seeds of his future career as a zoologist were sown, as is shown by the steady stream of notes, observations and papers read, labelled J. S. G., in the Reports of the School Natural History Society which he joined in 1887, in which year he won the ‘Stanton’ prize for ornithology and also compiled a list of the birds of the district. In 1888 he was elected a member of the committee of the Society.
English Literature: from Sixth Form to University
