GORDON, Edward Strathearn (1814-1879), of 2 Randolt Court, Edinburgh

Gordon, a distinguished lawyer who was appointed lord advocate of Scotland in 1867, came in for Thetford with the sole intention of steering the Conservative ministry’s 1868 Scottish representation of the people bill through the Commons. The only child of John Gordon, a major in the 2^nd Queen’s regiment, he was named after the family’s military patron, Prince Edward, the duke of Kent and Strathearn.1A. S. Gordon, ‘Gordon, Edward Strathearn, Baron Gordon of Drumearn’, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com. Born in Inverness, Gordon spent his early infancy in Trinidad, where his father was stationed, but after surviving the yellow fever epidemic that killed his mother when he was three, he returned home and was raised by his aunt.2Ibid. His father having dissuaded him from pursuing a military career, he studied law at Edinburgh University and was called to the Scottish bar in 1835. Thereafter he earned a reputation as a ‘sound lawyer, and a most judicious pleader’ and in 1852 was appointed an advocate depute under his lifelong friend John Inglis, the lord advocate, who later briefly sat for Stamford.3G. W. T. Omond, The lord advocates of Scotland, second series, 1834-1880 (1914), 289-90. In his most high profile case, Gordon was senior defence counsel in the 1861 Yelverton lawsuit, which tested the validity of the marriage between the Protestant William Yelverton and the Roman Catholic Maria Longworth, which had previously been declared null and void.4The Times, 19 July 1861; A. B. Erickson and J. R. McCarthy, ‘The Yelverton case: civil legislation and marriage’, Victorian Studies, 14 (1971), 275-91.

In July 1866 Gordon was appointed solicitor-general for Scotland by the new Derby ministry, and in February the following year was promoted to lord advocate. Gordon backed the ministry’s representation of the people bill, and at the annual government whitebait dinner at Greenwich, held shortly after the bill became law in August 1867, he sang a ‘jovial Scotch song’ to celebrate the Conservatives’ ‘dishing’ of the Liberals.5The Times, 15 Aug. 1867; W. F. Moneypenny and G. E. Buckle, The life of Benjamin Disraeli (1916), iv. 552. Known usually for his ‘grave and austere’ demeanour, Gordon’s musical antics were later reported to have moved Disraeli ‘to one of his very rare bursts of laughter’.6Ibid.

With the Conservative government planning to introduce its Scottish representation of the people bill in the 1868 session, Gordon was anxious to enter the Commons and in December 1867 he contested a vacancy at Thetford, created by the retirement of the sitting member, Alexander Hugh Baring, who had stepped down in protest at the Derby ministry’s handling of the 1867 representation of the people bill.7Essex Standard, 27 Nov. 1867. He had no connection to the borough and his address, in which he stated that Derby’s foreign policy had ‘enabled Englishmen to look a foreigner in the face’ after years of Liberal ‘meddle and muddle’, confirmed that he was standing in order to oversee the expected Scotch reform bill.8The Times, 20 Nov. 1867. He was initially opposed by the Liberal Lord Frederick Fitzroy, who had represented the borough between 1863 and 1865, but after a number of electors who had previously signed the requisition to Fitzroy switched their allegiance to Gordon, the former retired.9Bury and Norwich Post, 26 Nov. 1867. At the nomination Gordon, dismissing rumours that he had attempted to seek a seat elsewhere, declared that Thetford was ‘his first political love’ and was elected unopposed.10Morning Post, 3 Dec. 1867.

On 17 February 1868 Gordon introduced the representation of the people (Scotland) bill and thereafter devoted his energies to pushing the legislation through the Commons.11Hansard, 17 Feb. 1868, vol. 190, cc. 811-19. From the outset, he made it clear that the Conservative ministry intended to extend the franchise along similar lines to England, and this was his guiding principle throughout the subsequent negotiations.12Hansard, 25 May 1868, vol. 192, cc. 842-3. However, his assertion that, as in England, payment of rates ought to be made a condition of the qualification was vociferously challenged by Henry Baxter, MP for Montrose, who felt that the principle was unsuited to Scotland, and by John Bright, who accused Gordon of ‘obstinate persistence’, 18 May 1868. With both parties unable to force their own proposals through, Gordon generally adopted a conciliatory approach. He accepted Liberal calls for a review of the boundaries of Glasgow, 28 May 1868, and amended the lodger clause, so as not to disenfranchise existing electors who had recently changed residence, 8 June 1868.13M. Dyer, ‘Burgh districts and the representation of Scotland, 1707-1983’, Parliamentary History, 15 (1996), 297. On the issue of the new university constituencies, he backed joining Edinburgh University with St. Andrew’s, and Glasgow with Aberdeen, on the grounds that ‘some jealousy might probably exist between Edinburgh and Glasgow; and it was therefore much better that the interest of each of these universities should be attended to by a separate member’.14Quotation taken from M. Feingold, History of Universities (2008), xxiii. 126. The bill also disenfranchised Thetford in order to provide for a redistribution of seats in Scotland.15PP 1867-68 (154), iv. 637. He gave vocal support to the government’s corrupt practices bill, again arguing that similar schemes be adopted for England and Scotland, 22 July 1868. A devout churchman, he voted against Gladstone’s resolutions on the Irish church, 3 Apr. 1868.

With Thetford now disenfranchised, Gordon offered for Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities at the 1868 general election, but was defeated.16The Times, 7 Dec. 1868. He was returned, however, for the constituency at a by-election in November the following year.17Ibid., 18 Nov. 1869. Re-appointed lord advocate by Disraeli in February 1874, he was the main author of the Church Patronage Act of 1874 (37 & 38 Vict. c. 82), which abolished patronage in the appointment of ministers to parishes in Scotland.18Omond, Lord advocates of Scotland, 288-30. In October 1876, under that year’s Appellate Jurisdiction Act, he was created a lord of appeal in ordinary, with the title of Baron Gordon of Drumearn, and elevated to the Lords as one of the first life peers.19Ibid., 306.

In July 1879 Gordon, suffering from heart disease, was advised to visit Homburg for his health, but was taken ill at Brussels, where he died on 21 August 1879.20The Times, 23 Aug. 1879. He was buried at the Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh.21Dundee Courier, 29 Aug. 1879. He was succeeded by his eldest son, John Edward, Conservative Member for Elginshire and Nairnshire 1895-1906, and Brighton, 1911-14. Gordon’s letters to Disraeli are held by the Bodleian, Oxford, and his correspondence with his wife, Agnes, is held by the National Library, Scotland.22Bodleian Library, Oxford, Dep. Hughenden; National Library, Scotland, Acc. 10595, 11361.