A portrait of Sir Frederick C Gardiner (1855-1937) painted in 1920 by Sir James Guthrie (1859-1930).
Frederick Crombie Gardiner was born in Kincardine in 1855. He spent an early part of his career in New Zealand training to be a shipbroker, but later returned to Scotland and went into business c 1880 as a shipbroker and shipowner with two of his brothers. Gardiner retired from the shipping business in 1918 and in 1920 became chairman of the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Co, having been a director with the company since 1911. The company grew quickly under Gardiner's chairmanship. By the time of his death in 1937 it was supplying 130,000 customers with electricity and had been linked (since the 1920s) to the Central Electricity Generating Board's national grid.
Gardiner helped to establish professorships of bacteriology, organic chemistry and physiological chemistry at the University of Glasgow and was actively involved in the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce.
Reference: 2651
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Museums
Keywords:
bacteriology, CEGB, Central Electricity Generating Board, Clyde Valley Electrical Power Co, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, James Gardiner & Co, national grid, oil paintings, organic chemistry, philanthropists, physiological chemistry, portraits, shipbrokers, shipowners/managers, University of Glasgow