Gerald Brosseau Gardner (June 13, 1884 - February 12, 1964) was a Freemason, an English hereditary Witch and largely responsible for reviving Witchcraft in the modern Western world. Gardner claimed to trace his roots to a Witch named Grissell Gardner who had been burned at the stake in 1610 at Newburgh.
Gardner suffered severely with asthma from an early age and required a nurse to attend to his needs. Nurse Josephine "Com" McCombie brought along young Gardner on her various trips to Europe and Ceylon, where he worked on a tea plantation. Gerald later worked and traveled to Borneo and Malaysia. In Ceylon between 1905 - 1908, Gardner became a Freemason, Sphinx Lodge 113, I.C., Colombo.
Between 1920 and 1923 Gardner studies native lore, magic, and weaponry in Malaysia. In 1926 through to 1932 Gardner takes up amateur Archaeology; proves the existence of a Malaysian civilization predating the coming of the Portuguese in 1687; returns to England and marries Donna Rosedale, a nurse; frequents the British Museum to research Welsh and Basque folklore; encounters a whole host of Spiritualist mediums; and visits an archaeological dig at Gaza in Egypt, prehistoric caves in France, and England.
In England before the Second World War, Gerald was involved with the Fellowship of Crotona - an occult group of Co-Masons - and met people who introduced him into Witchcraft. The Fellowship of Crotona was a secret society within a secret society; the inner circle claimed to be hereditary Witches. In 1939, Gardner was initiated into the New Forest coven by high priestess Old Dorothy Clutterbuck.[
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