Monarch Victoria Spouse Winifred Herbert Nationality British Died May 6, 1921 | Name Herbert 1st | |
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Prime Minister William Ewart GladstoneThe Earl of Rosebery Born 9 June 1846 ( 1846-06-09 ) Parents Alan Gardner, 3rd Baron Gardner Education Trinity College, Cambridge Grandparents Alan Hyde Gardner, 2nd Baron Gardner Great-grandparents Alan Gardner, 1st Baron Gardner | ||
Herbert Colstoun Gardner, 1st Baron Burghclere PC (9 June 1846 – 6 May 1921) was a British Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 until he was raised to the peerage in 1895. He served as President of the Board of Agriculture between 1892 and 1895.
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Background and education
Gardner was the son of Alan Gardner, 3rd Baron Gardner, by his second wife, the professional actress Juliah Sarah (née Fortescue). However, he was born two years before his parents' marriage and was consequently not allowed to succeed in the barony of Gardner on his father's death in 1883. He was educated at Harrow and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. At Cambridge, he was a member and eventually manager of the Amateur Dramatic Club which was 'flourishing exceedingly' under his management. He later acted with the Canterbury Old Stagers for whom he and William Yardley wrote some of the best plays and epilogues they produced. In 1867 Gardner was admitted at Inner Temple and was a Deputy Lieutenant of Middlesex.
Political career
At the 1885 general election Gardner was elected Member of Parliament for Saffron Walden, a seat he held until 1895. He served in the Liberal administrations of William Ewart Gladstone and later Lord Rosebery as President of the Board of Agriculture from 1892 to 1895. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1892 and in 1895 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Burghclere, of Walden in the County of Essex.
Gardner was a director of the P and O Steamship Company. He was an Ecclesiastical Commissioner from 1903 to 1921 and chairman of Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. Gardner was also an author of several novels, and of the comedies Time will tell, Our Bitterest Foe, After Dinner and Cousin Zacchary. He published a translation of Virgil's Georgics in 1904.
Family
Lord Burghclere married Lady Winifred Anne Henrietta Christiana, daughter of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, and widow of Captain the Hon. Alfred John George Byng, in 1890. They had four daughters. His youngest daughter, Evelyn, was the first wife of the author Evelyn Waugh. His second daughter, Alathea, married Sir Geoffrey Fry, 1st Baronet.
Lord Bughclere died in May 1921, aged 74. As he had no sons the barony became extinct on his death. Lady Burghclere died in September 1933, aged 69.