James Gardiner

Artist Info

James Gardiner1732, Lincoln, England

Gardiner, James (d. 1732), Church of England clergyman, was the younger son of James Gardiner (1636/7–1705) bishop of Lincoln, and his wife, Ann Hale (d. 1705) of Kettlethorpe, Lincolnshire. He was educated at Westminster School, and admitted pensioner of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1695, proceeding BA, as sixteenth wrangler, in 1699 and MA in 1702. He was elected a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1700 and incorporated into the University of Oxford in 1703. He was ordained deacon by the bishop of Lincoln in 1702. In Lincoln Cathedral, in 1704, his father preferred him as prebendary of Asgarby, as subdean of the cathedral, and as master of St John's Hospital, Northampton, and of Bedford Hospital, Nottingham, all of which posts he held until his death.

In A Practical Exposition of the Beatitudes, published in 1712, Gardiner noted a parallelism between the giving of the ten commandments and the sermon on the mount in Matthew's gospel, and compared it with the version in Luke's gospel. Gardiner also published a sermon which he had preached in Lincoln Cathedral in 1713, entitled The Duty of Peace amongst the Members of the Same State, against faction and party, commenting that as there was peace abroad so there ought to be peace at home. In 1715 he published A practical exposition of the latter part of our saviour's sermon on the mount from the beatitudes to the end of the sermon. He noted that in his earlier volume he had been criticized for lack of oratory, but he pointed out that these two volumes were not intended to be sermons but practical expositions. He contributed to the Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany Poems, published in 1709, and translated Rapin of Gardens, published in 1718.

Gardiner appears to have kept his full residence at Lincoln and to have continued the work of his father, who had been subdean from 1671 to 1695, in rebuilding and renovating the subdeanery after its sack by the military in 1644. His expenditure on the house was considerable, and it was thought by contemporaries to be the best house belonging to the cathedral. During Gardiner's time as a subdean successive deans were largely absentee. In 1729 a new chancellor, the nephew of Bishop Reynolds, pointed out that the dean was no longer entitled to a share of the cathedral's common fund. This was because under the cathedral's statutes the dean was required to be in residence for 119 days per year and he had been absent for two years. The bishop, as visitor, upheld the statutes, and in doing so gave additional recognition to the enhanced role of the subdean. During Gardiner's subdeanship the dean and chapter were very conservative in their management of their estates, resisting raising their rents, as were other capitular bodies at this time, which may have avoided opposition and anti-clericalism but reduced the residentiaries' income and, more importantly, reduced the amount spent on the cathedral fabric. In fact very little was spent on the cathedral between 1701 and 1719. In 1725 a visitor commented that it was in very poor condition and James Gibbs was called in to survey the building and advise on its repair. He recommended the removal of the spires on the western towers; this provoked opposition in the city and the county. In September 1726, when work was about to begin on taking down the spires, rioting broke out in the cathedral precincts, and Gardiner and the chancellor of the cathedral had to negotiate with the mayor to preserve the peace and decided to retain the spires. Gardiner died at Lincoln on 24 March 1732 and was buried in the retrochoir of the cathedral, next to his father. His wife, Dinah, died on 4 September 1734.

W. M. Jacob

Sources Venn, Alum. Cant. · M. Bowker, ‘Historical survey, 1450–1750’, A history of Lincoln Minster, ed. D. Owen (1994), 164–209 · F. Hill, Georgian Lincoln (1966) · G. Jones, K. Major, and J. Varley, The survey of ancient houses in Lincoln, 2 (1987) · DNB

Likenesses G. Vertue, line engraving (after J. Verelst), BM, NPG; repro. in Rapin of Gardens, 2nd edn, trans. J. Gardiner (1718)

W. M. Jacob, ‘Gardiner, James (d. 1732)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10358, accessed 20 June 2014]