Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Poet, composer, cabinetmaker, and piano and organ maker. Father of Annie Walker Gardiner. Born in Upper Hallhills, Applegarth, Dumfriesshire. Spent his childhood in Burnfoot, Sibbaldie. Apprenticed in cabinetmaking. Moved to Glasgow and went into the piano and organ making business with his brother. Contributed to Whistle Binkie, Lays of St. Mungo, and Nursery Songs. Returned to Dryfe in 1848. Helped establish the Sibbaldie Library. Superintendent of the local Sabbath School. Chambers’s Journal ledger entry for Bonnie Dryfe, posthumously published on 16 January 1886 and signed William Gardiner, lists payment for Miss A. Gardiner, of Lockerbie (NLS Dep 341/369), presumably his daughter Annie Walker Gardiner. Biographical information: David Herschell Edwards, Modern Scottish Poets, ninth series, D. H. Edwards, 1886, pp. 248-55; David Herschell Edwards, One Hundred Modern Scottish Poets With Biographical and Critical Notice, sixteenth series, D. H. Edwards, 1897, p. 141. (AC, CC)