Biography

James Gairdner (1828-1912), historian, was born in Edinburgh on 22 March 1828. Gairdner was educated privately in Edinburgh, and in 1846 at the age of eighteen was appointed to a clerkship at the Public Record Office. He became an assistant keeper in 1859, a position which he continued to occupy until his retirement in 1893. Recognition of his work was generous, but came late in his life. Edinburgh University conferred the honorary degree of LLD upon him in 1897 (the first degree of any kind which he obtained). He was made a CB in 1900, and received the honorary degree of DLitt from the University of Oxford in 1910. In 1876 Gairdner processed The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century, and in 1880 Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles. He published A History of the Life and Reign of Richard III in 1878, a popular study of Henry VII in 1889, the volume covering the years 1509 to 1559 in The History of the English Church in 1902, and his main work, Lollardy and the Reformation in England (4 vols.), commencing in 1908. Gairdner died at his home, West View, Pinner, Middlesex, on 4 November 1912, and was buried in London.

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