Gardiner was born in
Chelsea, London, on 17 March 1922. His father was
Clive Gardiner, a landscape artist and principal of
Goldsmiths College; his mother was
Lilian Lancaster, an artist and a pupil of
Walter Sickert. His paternal grandfather was
Alfred George Gardiner, editor of
The Daily News. His younger brother was the architect
Stephen Gardiner. Gardiner was educated at home until 1933 when he was enrolled at
Westminster School. His contemporaries included
Richard Wollheim and
David Pears who became fellow philosophers and lifelong friends. As a pupil he displayed, and pursued, a passion for literature and history. He matriculated as
Christ Church, Oxford in 1940 where he received a First in history in 1942. Almost immediately after he completed his studies, he was called up into the Army and saw active service in North Africa and Italy. After being
demobbed in 1945 he returned to Oxford and chose to pursue a second honours course in
PPE and then further research which would become his
B.Litt. thesis (1950) and his first book,
The Nature of Historical Explanation in 1952. His
Times obituarist writes that this work "established the concept of an analytic philosophy of history". He was appointed as a lecturer to
Wadham College, Oxford (1949), and then as a fellow at
St Antony's College, Oxford (1952). In1958 he became a Fellow of
Magdalen College, where he remained until he retired as an Emeritus Fellow in 1989. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1985. He married Susan Booth (1934–2006) in 1955 and had two daughters. Gardiner died in Oxford on 24 June 1991. ==Works==