Eric Clarence Gardner was born in Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand, on 16th July 1898, the son of James Andrew and Annie Gardner (née Gray). He had an older brother, Leonard James Wesley, born in 1894, who was a fruit farmer in Dunedin in 1915, and a younger brother named William Gerald, always known as ‘Willie‘, who was born in 1901.
In 1902, however Eric’s father decided to leave New Zealand and settle in Toronto, Ontario, Canada where he acquired a large share in a costume manufacturing concern. By 1915, however, he had sold this and intending to return to Dunedin, first booked second cabin passage on the Lusitania for England, where he hoped to set up some business agencies. Consequently, the family set off for Europe and having travelled by rail to New York, they arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54, on the morning of 1st May and boarded the liner for her delayed sailing which eventually got under way just after mid-day. The delay was caused because she had to embark passengers, cargo, and crew from the recently requisitioned Anchor Lines vessel
Cameronia.
Six days later, on the early afternoon of 7th May, the liner was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine
U-20, within sight of The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland and only hours away from her Liverpool destination. Although both of Eric Gardner’s parents were killed as a result, he and his brother both survived, although the sinking rendered them both orphans.
Not long after the sinking, Captain Frederick D. Ellis, an American mariner wrote a book named
The Tragedy of the Lusitania, which was based on the accounts of eye-witnesses of the sinking. In it the fate of the Gardner family is outlined: -
Young Gardner, sixteen years old, said that when the Lusitania was struck by the torpedo his mother fainted. In spite of all efforts to restore her, she did not revive and she sank with the steamship. The youth also went under, but came to the surface, and seeing an upturned lifeboat, swam for it. He failed to get hold on this boat, but, seeing a boatload of survivors nearby, he swam to it and was taken on board. In this boat the youth found his father lying prostrate in the bottom in a collapse. Efforts to revive the elder Gardner were unavailing and he died.
Captain Ellis must have been mistaken about this latter fact, because his body was not buried afterwards and is listed in Cunard records as not recovered. It is inconceivable that this would have been the case had it been in the bottom of the lifeboat and then landed at Queenstown. This, of course, may put the veracity of the rest of Ellis’s story into question. The account continues: -
The younger Gardner boy had disappeared when the vessel sank, and the elder had no hope of ever seeing him again, but when he landed in Queenstown, he was overjoyed to find his brother. The two boys went to London together, where the younger was put to bed in an exhausted condition in a hotel near Euston.
The New Zealand newspaper The Otago Daily Times in its edition of 11th May 1915 gave the additional information: -
Their tickets were lost and they are penniless and friendless.
On 9th May 1915, following an enquiry from Cunard’s office in New York about the Gardner family, Cunard at London sent a cable which stated: -
Father and Mother lost. Boys Safe here.
Cunard then followed this up with a letter which read: -
Dear Sir,
We beg to inform you that the two lads (about) whom we telephoned, Eric and Willie Gardner, aged 16 and 14 years, are staying at the Euston Hotel. Their father and mother are missing and we have telegraphed for them to a friend in Toronto to get the address of a friend in England with whom we will communicate as soon as received.
The outcome of this correspondence is not known.
Having lost both of his parents in the sinking, and maybe seeking revenge for this loss, although he was under age for the Army, (he was only sixteen years of age when the liner went down), Eric Gardner later enlisted in The New Zealand Expeditionary Force. As 30932 Lance Corporal E.C. Gardner of the 3rd Battalion, The Auckland Regiment, he was posted to the Western Front the same year, with the 20th Reinforcements of the 2nd draft of the regiment, after what must have been the barest minimum of training! Because of the shortness of the time scale, it is likely that his enlistment was in Great Britain, especially so, as he gave his next of kin as his uncle, Mr. J. McEwan of Coutts Road, Gore, Kent. He gave his occupation upon enlistment as ‘orchardist’ - presumably meaning fruit farmer - like his brother.
Fate and Imperial Germany had not finished with the Gardner family, however, for on 15th October 1917, Lance Corporal Gardner died of wounds received in action in the Ypres Salient in, Belgium, during the Third Battle of Ypres, more popularly known as The Battle of Passendaele. He was buried in Nine Elms British Cemetery, at Poperinghe, near Ypres, where his remains lie today, in Section V, Row F, Grave 11. His headstone simply states: -
30932 LANCE CORPORAL E.C. GARDNER
AUCKLAND REGIMENT,
15th OCTOBER 1917
AGED 21 YEARS *******
There is no personal or family inscription on the stone. He was aged 19 years and three months at the time of his death, although the records of The Commonwealth War Graves Commission state that he was 21 years of age. Thus, when he enlisted he must have added two years on to his actual age.
By the time that Nine Elms Cemetery register was compiled in the early 1920s, additional family information for Lance Corporal Gardner’s entry stated: -
Brother of Mr. L. J. W. Gardner of Upper Moutere, Nelson, New Zealand.
There is no mention of Eric Gardner’s Lusitania connection.
Eric Gardner’s brother Leonard also served in the Army during the Great War. As 2007 Sergeant L.J. Gardner, he served with ‘C’ Squadron of The Canterbury Mounted Rifles. This unit served with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force on the Western Front, and in May 1915, Leonard Gardner was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant. He suffered a gunshot wound to his right thigh and shell shock in October 1917, and following treatment, he was returned to New Zealand where he returned to fruit farming.
New Zealand Birth Records 1840 -1950, UK Outward Passenger Lists 1890 – 1960, Cunard Records, New Zealand WW1 Service Records 1914 – 1920, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Otago Boys’ High School Old Boys Register, Otago Daily Times, Tragedy of the Lusitania, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv.D92/1/6, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Trevor Richards, Stuart Williamson, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.