GORDON, Charles, Lord Strathavon (1792-1863), of Orton Longueville, Hunts.

According to his cousin Charles Cecil Cope Jenkinson, Strathavon, at the age of 20, caused some concern to his mother as he tended ‘towards the Melton Club and keeping a number of hunters, the only remedy for which is his being sent abroad so as to wean him altogether from the style of society he has entered into’. She would ‘not hear’ of his joining Wellington in the Peninsula, but heeded his cousin’s advice that he should be sent to Lisbon, under the aegis of the envoy Sir Charles Stuart. In his absence he was proposed by his father for Huntingdonshire on the vacancy of 1814, with the goodwill of the ministry, headed by his kinsman the 2nd Earl of Liverpool, but was withdrawn. His name recurred as a likely candidate for the county, but he was not chosen until 1830. Instead he came in on his aunt the dowager Duchess of Dorset’s interest for East Grinstead.

Strathavon was an inconspicuous supporter of the Liverpool administration. On 31 Mar. 1819 he took ten days’ leave. He was in a minority on the salt laws, 29 Apr. 1819, but voted against Tierney’s censure motion, 18 May, and paired with ministers on the navy estimates and the foreign enlistment bill, 2 and 10 June. His only known speech in the House before 1820 was a quibble with Sir Robert Heron, 7 Dec. 1819. He died 18 Sept. 1863.1Add. 38250, f. 38; 38458, ff. 186-90.