William H. Gardiner
William H. Gardiner was a Victorian-era photographer. He is best known for his work on Mackinac Island, Michigan. Life In Canada Gardiner was born in 1861 in Brampton, Canada West. Little is known of his early life. His father, William Clarke Gardiner, was a hotel keeper. The family lived in the small town of Avening north of Orangeville, Ontario from 1866 until about 1874, when they moved to Toronto. What led Gardiner into photography is not known, but he chose it as a career from an early age. When he was only twenty the Toronto directory listed him as a photographer, boarding with his parents. In 1883 he married Louise East. They had two children, H. (Harry) Marshall and Ethel. In the early 1880s Gardiner worked for prominent and respected Toronto photographers, first Thomas E. Perkins and then Samuel J. Dixon. In the latter 1880s Gardiner moved to Orangeville, sixty miles northwest of Toronto. He opened his own photographic business for a time before joining the William Still Studio. By 1888 he had returned to Toronto and opened a studio. Times were apparently not good and by 1890 Gardiner is no longer listed in the city directory as a photographer,