George Barnet Gardiner (1852 – 1910) was a Scottish-born folk-song collector who collected songs from traditional singers in Southern England, chiefly in Hampshire, but also in Surrey, Sussex, Somerset and other counties.
From 1883 he taught at Edinburgh Academy, where he met and formed a friendship with fellow teacher Henry Edward Denison Hammond, with whom he shared an interest in folk song.
With the help of the composer Balfour Gardiner (not a relation) to note the tunes, he collected 60 songs in the area to the east and south of Winchester in June 1905, but soon found that the intensely busy times of hay making and harvesting made collecting from country singers difficult.
This time he was assisted by Charles Gamblin and John Fisher Guyer, and, when hay-making commenced, collected from the workhouses, whose elderly occupants were always on tap.
[7] In 1965 the EFDSS published "Marrow Bones", a compilation of songs from the Gardiner and Hammond collections edited by Frank Parslow.
The Marrow Bone series was an important source of material for English folk musicians, and has recently been revised and reprinted in three books.