Robert Gardener

Robert Gardener was a merchant and Member of Parliament, in 1388, from Bristol. His commercial interests were mainly in the cloth trade. He exported cloth mostly to Ireland, but also to Bayonne and Portugal. His principal import was Irish salmon, but he also traded in iron, woolfells and skins, and became involved in the lucrative Gascon wine trade.

Gardener’s commercial interest sometimes suffered from bad weather, overzealous local officials, and pirates. In the autumn of 1376 he sent his merchandise from Cork to Calais, but the bad weather drove the ship to Bristol and the customs officials there demanded further payment. One of his shipment aboard the Cogge John, making for Dublin but driven by storm into Kinsale, was there detained following allegations that members of the crew were Spaniards and therefore enemy aliens. Another misfortune happened to him and his partners when theirs ship, the Magdaleyn, was captured by the pirates in the autumn of 1383 on its way to Lisbon laden with cloth and wool allegedly worth £1,000.