Bertha Meriton Gardiner
A Forgotten Historian
Abstract
Keywords:
historian; woman historian; French Revolution; reviewer; family
Bertha Meriton Gardiner (1845-1925) was the second wife of the famous historian, Samuel Rawson Gardiner. Her birth name was Cordery. With little or no formal education, Bertha Meriton Cordery became a self-trained historian. She published books about political history, topics usually written by men and not by women. King and Commonwealth: A History of the Great Rebellion (1874), followed by a short book for schoolchildren, The Struggle against Absolute Monarchy, 1603-1688 (1877), vigorously attacked the Stuart kings. An Evangelical in religion, she admired the Puritans, notably Oliver Cromwell. In 1876 Cordery published anonymously a long review essay, “Gardiner’s Reign of James I,” in the Edinburgh Review. As an unabashed Whig, she criticized the interpretations of her future husband as too generous toward James I, Charles I and their followers. In 1883 as Bertha Meriton Gardiner, she edited documents in the Camden series. In the same year she left English history to publish a history of the French Revolution which she had mostly completed before her marriage. After her marriage, she published only book reviews about French history. As a married woman, she managed a large household which included her husband’s younger children. In time, she added four sons of her own, the youngest born when she was 45. Her family responsibilities explain why she wrote no books after 1883 and no reviews after 1891. As a result, she became a forgotten historian.
References
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