Anthony W. Gardiner (Liberia, USA)

Anthony William Gardiner (1820–1885) served as the 9th President of Liberia from 1879 until 1883. He was the first and only Liberian Whig to hold the Governorship.

Gardner was born in the state of Virginia in the United States. In 1831, when he was still a child, his family relocated to Liberia under the sponsorship of the American Colonization Society. Gardner received his law degree in Liberia and, in 1846, he served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, which drafted Liberia's Commonwealth status and its constitution. He became Liberia's first attorney general and later served in the National Legislature from 1855 to 1871.

Gardiner would be elected Governor in the 1878 election as the economy of the Commonwealth began to falter and Gardiner said he had the solution. This solution proved pointless and the economy sank even deaper and he tryed to curtaile the rights of the indigenous people. Gardiner wouldn't run for reelection in 1882 and would leave the Whig Party to go down in flames in the 1882 election.