9th Battalion, Royal Lincolnshire Regiment
According to Leaving all that was dear – Cheltenham in the Great War by Joe Devereux and Graham Sacker: Henry Montfort Gardner was the son of Richard Gardner, a solicitor and Mary Ellen Gardner of Leamington Spa. He was commissioned into the army in 1886 and saw all his military service with the Lincolnshire Regiment, serving with Lord Kitchener in the Sudan and being present at the Battle of Omdurman, retiring from the Army in 1902.
Volunteering for active service again in 1914, he was given command of the 9th (Reserve) Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment, but relinquished this command for active service with the 4th (Territorial) Battalion. In this role, he was with the battalion when it was part of the diversionary attack at Gommecourt on the first day of the Somme Offensive of 1916 and was shot in the head whilst supervising the digging of communication trenches. As a result of his injuries he was blinded.
Shortly after being invalided home, he experienced the tragedy of losing his wife, Cecilia Marion Gardner (née Edge) after which his health deteriorated and he died of bronchial pneumonia at home in Cheltenham, on 28 October 1918, aged 53, leaving a son and two daughters. He is buried in Cheltenham Cemetery and commemorated on the Borough War and the memorial in Christ Church.
Additional information discovered is that he was born at Leamington Spa in the third quarter of 1865 and married in 1899 at Guildford, Surrey. The 1911 census shows his address (as a ‘Retired Captain of Infantry’) as Woodfield, Grove Road, Cranleigh, Surrey. His Medal Index Card shows that his medals were despatched to (presumably) his son at The Cottage, Queens Road, Cheltenham. This is the address given for his wife at the time of her death on 2 August 1916, although according to the Probate Register she actually died in The Nursing Home, Cheltenham. Lieutenant Colonel Gardner’s grave in Cheltenham Cemetery is marked by a private headstone.
Researched by Graham Adams 7 September 2012