The Gardiner children are the offspring of Edward Gardiner, a tradesman, and his wife M. Gardiner. They live on Gracechurch Street within view of their father's warehouses, where their cousins often visit them. Their father's sisters are Mrs. Phillips, who married an attorney who inherited their grandfather's business, and Mrs. Bennet, who married a gentleman and became the mother of Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia.
They do not accompany their parents to Longbourn for Christmas, and when Elizabeth visits Gracechurch Street on her way to Hunsford for Easter, they are excited and shy because they have not seen her for a twelvemonth. Nor do they join Elizabeth and their parents on their tour of Derbyshire. Instead they are left in their favorite cousin Jane's care at Longbourn, at which point the two girls are said to be eight and six years old and the two boys younger.
They are excited by the return of their parents and Elizabeth after Lydia's elopement, and when Mr. Gardiner goes to London, they remain a few days while their mother helps her nieces. Mrs. Gardiner and her children join Mr. Gardiner in London when Mr. Bennet returns to Longbourn.
Jane says Mr. Gardiner cannot part with the ten thousand pounds necessary to make George Wickham marry Lydia because he has four children and might have more; later, it is revealed that Fitzwilliam Darcy paid off Wickham. The Gardiner children's cousin Elizabeth marries Darcy, and Jane marries Charles Bingley, at the conclusion of the story.
In Adaptations[]
- In the 1995 BBC miniseries, they are named Mary, Catherine, Edward, and Philip, and they appear somewhat older than they are in the book, with Mary appearing ten, Catherine eight, Edward seven and Philip five.
- In the 2005 movie, none of the children appear, and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner are stated by his sister Mrs. Bennet to be childless.