GORDON, George John James Hamilton, Lord Haddo (1816-1864), of Haddo House, Aberdeenshire

The sickly heir to the Peelite George Hamilton Gordon, 4th earl of Aberdeen, Haddo suppressed his Conservative tendencies while his father was alive. He was ‘a Liberal-Conservative in politics, but was by no means a party man; and, indeed the weak state of his health prevented him in a great measure from the active discharge of his parliamentary duties’.1Gent. Mag. (1864), i. 655. ‘Of a diffident and retiring disposition’, he played little part in the debates about the Crimean War that triggered the collapse of his father’s government in 1855, and was more interested in religious questions.2Aberdeen Journal, 23 Mar. 1864. A devout Evangelical Protestant, on a number of occasions Haddo moved to end government grants to art schools that employed nude models.

After a grand tour of Europe, Haddo served as attaché to the British embassy at Constantinople in 1837, an appointment probably secured through his father’s influence. His father was foreign secretary in Sir Robert Peel’s second administration, 1841-6, but Haddo showed little political ambition at this time. A cultured man, Haddo was a talented amateur painter and had an anonymously submitted landscape displayed at the 1843 Royal Academy exhibition.3Gent. Mag. (1864), i. 655. After 1848, Haddo’s health, which had hitherto been ‘very robust, first began to fail, and it baffled the skill of the most eminent physicians to discover the seat of the disease’.4Ibid. Privately Haddo doubted the wisdom of Peel’s free trade policy, which his father strongly supported. Upon visiting the Aberdeen family in autumn 1850, Lord John Manners noted ‘The Admiral [William Gordon, Haddo’s uncle] & Haddo both Protectionists’.5Lord John Manners to Benjamin Disraeli, 10 Sept. 1850, Hughenden papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, B/XX/N/65, qu. in The Benjamin Disraeli letters, ed. M.G. Wiebe et al (1993), v. 364, n. 9.

Lord Aberdeen became prime minister of a Whig-Peelite coalition in December 1852 and the appointment of his Derbyite brother William Gordon to naval command in August 1854 created a vacancy for Aberdeenshire. Lord Aberdeen wrote that his chronically ill heir ‘seems to have no objections to come into Parliament’.6Lord Aberdeen to Arthur Hamilton Gordon, 28 July 1854, Add. 43226, f. 227. Haddo was returned unopposed as a man acceptable to all parties. He was too ill to attend the nomination and shortly afterwards he went for a lengthy holiday to Egypt. His father had little confidence that the trip would make any difference to his health, writing to Haddo’s brother Arthur Hamilton Gordon, Liberal MP for Beverley, 1854-7, that ‘it will be nothing less than a miracle, if you ever see him again after he leaves England’.7Lord Aberdeen to Arthur Hamilton Gordon, 29 Aug. 1854, Add. 43226, f. 230.

Haddo’s health improved slightly as a result of his Egyptian sojourn, but he was still overseas when his father’s government was turned out on Roebuck’s motion for an inquiry into the state of the army at Sebastopol, 29 Jan. 1855. He played no part in the debates on the mismanagement of the Crimean war in the same session. Accordingly it was left to his younger brother Arthur to defend their father in the Commons, 17 July 1855.8Hansard, 17 July 1855, vol. 139, cc. 989-91. When Sir De Lacy Evans, Radical MP for Westminster, alleged that their brother Alexander Hamilton Gordon, later Liberal MP for East Aberdeenshire, 1875-85, was an incompetent soldier who had been elevated beyond his abilities due to the influence of the Court, it was again left to Arthur to make a riposte, 29 Feb. 1856.9Hansard, 29 Feb. 1856, vol. 140, cc. 1646-9. Like most Scottish MPs, but unlike his more radical brother Arthur, Haddo opposed Sunday opening of the British Museum and other public institutions and was a firm opponent of the Maynooth grant, 21 Feb., 15 Apr. 1856.

Haddo missed most of the crucial party votes in the later 1850s due to his poor health, although he sided with disgruntled Peelites, Liberals and Conservatives in defeating Palmerston’s government over Canton, 3 Mar. 1857. Much to his father’s annoyance, Haddo behaved ‘very foolishly’ at the consequent general election by delaying his return to Aberdeenshire until the latest possible moment.10Lord Aberdeen to Arthur Hamilton Gordon, 24 Mar. 1857, Add. 43226, f. 254. In the event he was returned unopposed after criticising the bombardment of Canton as ‘an unnecessary act of violence … committed upon a defenceless people’ and speaking in favour of popular education.11Aberdeen Journal, 8 Apr. 1857. Haddo’s votes in favour of Derby’s reform bill, and against the address of Palmerston’s second administration, 31 Mar., 10 June 1859, were an indication of the Conservative sympathies that would be given freer rein after his father’s death. At the 1859 general election, when he was again re-elected without opposition, he was variously categorised as a Liberal, a Conservative and a Liberal Conservative.12The Standard, 23 Apr. 1859; Daily News, 28 Apr. 1859; Caledonian Mercury, 26 Apr. 1859; Morning Chronicle, 21 Apr. 1859.

Thereafter Haddo increasingly focused his attention on two issues. Firstly, with William Henry Sykes, Liberal MP for Aberdeen, he led the parliamentary opposition to the proposed amalgamation of Aberdeen’s universities, King’s and Marischal Colleges. He voiced the broad and deep hostility to the measure from Aberdeenshire and argued that no ‘public advantage’ would be gained from the union of two colleges that had thrived as independent institutions, 25 June 1858.13Hansard, 25 June 1858, vol. 151, cc. 405-6; 5 July 1858, vol. 151, c. 962. Haddo was also part of a deputation, including Sykes, the duke of Richmond and other notables from north-eastern Scotland, which unsuccessfully lobbied Lord Derby against the amalgamation in April 1859.14Aberdeen Journal, 20 Apr. 1859. The following year, Haddo was one of the sponsors of a bill that aimed to safeguard the autonomy of the two colleges by keeping their respective funds, property, revenue and courses separate.15PP 1860 (65), vi. 771-6.

Secondly, Haddo attempted to prevent public money going to art schools that employed nude female models in 1858, 1859 and 1860. The modest artistic benefits of nude study, Haddo argued, had to be weighed against ‘many evils’, such as debasing the ‘humbler classes’.16Hansard, 9 July 1858, vol. 151, c. 1238. He recalled that he experienced ‘feelings of shame and disgust’ on one occasion after accidentally witnessing a nude study, and argued that ‘the claims of morality were more important than those of art’.17Hansard, 25 July 1859, vol. 155, c. 371. Little support was forthcoming in the House. His 1858 amendment was defeated and he was forced to abandon his attempt the following year. In 1860 the diarist and Liberal MP Sir John Trelawny remarked that Haddo had made ‘a singularly absurd speech. He seemed to be melancholy mad. He looks like a Don Quixote’.18Hansard, 15 May 1860, vol. 158, cc. 1293-4; The parliamentary diaries of Sir John Trelawny, 1858-1865, ed. T.J. Jenkins (1990), 123 (15 May 1860). Charles Bowyer Adderley, a former Conservative minister, noted that only one, rather than four as Haddo had claimed, of the twelve government schools of art employed naked women as models. Besides, it was a ‘gross misrepresentation’ to refer to art studios as if they were ‘gambling houses and brothels’.19Hansard, 15 May 1860, vol. 158, c. 1295. Palmerston added that Haddo’s intentions were unclear, and sarcastically suggested that ‘he ought to bring in a bill to make it penal for any person, anywhere, to study the female form’.20Ibid., 1297. Haddo’s resolution was defeated by 147 votes to 32.21Ibid., 1298.

Haddo was in Egypt when he succeeded his father as 5th earl of Aberdeen in December 1860.22J.K. Chapman, The career of Arthur Hamilton Gordon, first Lord Stanmore 1829-1912 (1964), 14. He endorsed the Conservative candidate at the by-election prompted by his elevation to the peerage. His brother Arthur declined to stand as a Liberal in order to avoid a family clash.23Arthur Hamilton Gordon to W.C. Gordon, 24 Jan. 1861; M.E. Graham to Arthur Hamilton Gordon, 26 Jan. 1861, Add. 49234, ff. 190, 204. (In the event Arthur was nominated in his absence and defeated in the poll). A newspaper commented that though the new earl was ‘naturally somewhat chary of opposing his father’s latest colleagues, it is no secret that he is a Derbyite at heart, and that all his leanings are strongly Conservative’.24Caledonian Mercury, 18 Feb. 1861.

Thereafter Lord Aberdeen generally resided at his seat Haddo House, although in May 1863 he travelled to Madrid to petition the queen of Spain for the remission of a man, Manuel Matamoros, who had been sentenced to nine years penal servitude for preaching Protestantism.25F. Boase, Modern English biography (1892), i. 7. On his death in 1864 Aberdeen was succeeded by his eldest son George Hamilton Gordon, 6th earl of Aberdeen (1841-70). After he drowned on a voyage to Melbourne, the titles and estates passed to his brother John Campbell Hamilton Gordon (1847-1934), 7th earl of Aberdeen. The 7th earl was a prominent Liberal politician, serving as lord lieutenant of Ireland, 1886, 1905-15, and as governor-general of Canada, 1893-8. He was created 1st marquess of Aberdeen and Temair in 1916.26Burke’s peerage (1949), 7-8.