William Gerald Gardner, always known as ‘Willie’, was born in Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand, on the 19th April 1901, the third son of James Andrew and Edith Gardner (née Gray). He had two older brothers, Leonard James Wesley, born in 1894, who in 1915, was a fruit farmer in the Nelson area of New Zealand and another named Eric, who was born in 1898. Their father was a businessman, originally from Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand, who in 1902 had moved with William’s mother and their three sons, to Toronto, where he developed a large interest in a costume manufacturing company.
In 1915, however, he disposed of his share of the business and intending, eventually, to return to Dunedin, booked second cabin tickets on the
Lusitania for the family to travel to England, where he intended to set up business agencies. Accordingly, they set out from Toronto to New York and on the morning of 1st May 1915, they boarded the
Lusitania at her berth at Pier 54 in the seaport. Having been allocated their second cabin accommodation, they had their last glimpse of America as the Cunarder sailed out of the harbour just after mid-day.
Six days later, on the afternoon of 7th May the family was shattered with the torpedoing of the vessel, by the German submarine
U-20, twelve miles off the southern Irish coast, only 250 miles away from her Liverpool destination. Although Willie Gardner and his older brother Eric survived the sinking, both of their parents were killed, turning them both into orphans. Willie Gardner was aged fourteen years at the time.
Not long after the sinking, an American mariner, Captain Frederick D. Ellis, published a book of eye witness accounts of the sinking named
The Tragedy of the Lusitania. In it he described the fate of the Gardner family: -
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 William’s father dying in the bottom of the lifeboat because his body was not buried afterwards. It is inconceivable that this would have been the case had it been landed at Queenstown and it certainly would have been, had he died in the bottom of the lifeboat. This, of course, puts the rest of Ellis’s story into question. Nevertheless, 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.
This notwithstanding, his half brother Eric Clarence Gardner went on to enlist, although under age, in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, perhaps to try and avenge his family’s losses, and he too, was killed. Whilst serving as 30932 Lance Corporal E.C. Gardner of the 3rd Battalion, The Auckland Regiment, he lost his life in the Ypres Salient in Belgium on the Western Front, on 15th October 1917, during The Battle of Passendaele. This left just William and his older brother out of the five who had been alive in August 1914!
His other 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.
Willie Gardner suffered from epilepsy, attributed to his ordeal in the sinking of the Lusitania, and was institutionalised in New Zealand for 40 years. He then went to live with his older brother, Leonard. He died in New Zealand on the 20th December 1984, aged 83 years. He never married.
New Zealand Birth Records 1840 -1950, UK Outward Passenger Lists 1890 – 1960, Cunard Records, 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.