Gardiner, Alexander Anson

Gardiner, Alexander Anson, 2nd Lieut. Indian Army Reserve of Officers, attd. 13th Coy, 2nd Queen Victoria's Own Sappers and Miners. 5th son of John William Gardiner, of Oakhurst, Sylvan Hill, Upper Norwood, J.P., Indian Civil Service (ret.) by his wife Grace Annie Marie Louise, dau. of the late Right Hon. Sir Joseph Napier, 1st Bart., P.C., M.A.. LL.D., D.C.L., Lord Chancellor of Ireland; born Rawalpindi, Punjab, India, 19 Nov. 1886; educ. Bradfied College, co. Berks, and King's College London, where he studied Engineering, and at the Institute of Civil Engineers; was admitted an Associate of King's College, in the Faculty of Engineering, 15 July 1908, and became an A.M.I.C.E., 5 March 1912; worked for a time in Doncaster and Croydon; joined the Engineering Staff of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway in 1911, and was Resident Engineer at Bina, in the Central Provinces; obtained a commission in the Indian Army Reserve of Officers 19 March 1915; was subsequently attached to the 2nd Queen Victoria's Own Sappers and Mines; trained at Bangalore - served with the Indian Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia from early in 1916, and was killed in action on the west of the Shatt-el-Hai 26 Jan. 1917, during the last attack on Kut. Buried in the cemeteryat Bassonia, on the west bank of the Hai (Grave No. 7, Row A). Major W. D. B. Conran wrote - "Your son was in this company when I took it over in Oct. last, and since then I had seen a great deal of him, and I know what a first-class fellow has been taken from us. He was a general favourite, also with the men who always did good work under him, and in whom he took a great interest. On 26 Jan. he commanded one of the three parties of our Sappers who were to accompany infantry attacking troops in an assault on the Turkish first-line trench on the west of the River Hai, near its junction with the Tigris. The assaulting troops had to cross a piece of open ground under heavy fire, and most of our casualties took place in doing this. The assault was at a quarter to eleven, and the fighting went on all that afternoon, but we eventually held the trenches and the Turks withdrew. A number of your son's party were killed and wounded, and we had difficulty in getting definite information as to what had happened to him; consequently the next day was spent in a fruitless search in a wrong direction, and it was on the 28th that we found his body. He had been killed by a rifle bullet through the heart when he was within twenty yards of the Turkish trench, and death must have been instantaneous. We carried him back to camp, and he was buried in the Bassonia cemetery at 3.30 p.m. on the 29th, our Chaplin, the Rev. Hemming, taking the service, at which all his brother officers were present." Unm. De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour

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