John Gardner (minister)

John Gardner (17 April 1809 – 10 May 1899) was a Scots-born Presbyterian minister in Adelaide, South Australia, the first incumbent of Chalmers Free Church of Scotland, now Scots Church, North Terrace, Adelaide. He later served at Launceston, Tasmania and Queenscliff, Victoria.

Gardner was born in Glasgow, the third son of Rev. William Gardner and his wife Mary Gardner, née Clelland. He was educated at Glasgow University for the ministry of the Scottish Church, and after being licensed to preach by the Glasgow presbytery served as assistant to Rev. R. Smith of Lochwinnoch, one of whose sons was Robert Burdett Smith of Adelaide. Gardner's first charge was St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, which opened in Conway Street, Birkenhead, Cheshire in 1840. He married Catherine Forrest in 1844.

The Presbyterian Church in Adelaide, whose pastor from 1839 was Dr. Ralph Drummond, started with a meeting house on Angas Street then a building in Gouger Street, close to Victoria Square. This church, as elsewhere, was affected by the "Disruption of 1843", when Rev. Dr. Thomas Chalmers founded the Free Church of Scotland. Many members, notably Thomas Elder and his brother Capt. William Elder, decided to establish their own church on Chalmers' "non-intrusionist" principles, and in 1849 asked the Colonial Committee of the Free Church of Scotland to find them a suitable minister. The position was offered to Gardner, who accepted, and with his wife, three children and a servant sailed to Adelaide aboard the Condor, arriving in March 1850. He took advantage of the ship's stopover at Port Melbourne to preach in the John Knox Church, Swanston Street.

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