William Gordon

c 1705 to 15 July 1776

GOR00020

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A cloth weaver who exported to Norway.

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Their elder brother, William, who should have succeeded was left like his father to struggle with poverty and a Mr Stuart became the possessor of Birkenburn. In the rebellion of 1745, both James and John went out with Prince Charles and, of course, were ruined. The circumstances of two young men sons of a rigid Presbyterian and brothers of another, living too distant to act by concert and going out in a cause wherein they had no personal interest shows clearly that their minds had become warped since they left their home. There can be no doubt that their old grandfather had effected this change. It also shows that this difference in politico-religious sentiment had been the main cause of the old man’s dislike to his son and eldest grandson neither of whom benefitted a farthing by him. What became of James I could never learn, indeed William (my grandfather) would never speak on the subject as my mother and father have assured me. Yet there had been no quarrel among them for William named two of his sons, James, who both died in infancy, after that brother; and another, the eldest of his surviving children, John, after the other. John himself told me that he had never seen his namefather, who had left Peterhead some years before he, John, was born, to wit in 1744. I know not if James was that Lieutenant James Gordon of Grant’s Aberdeenshire Regiment, who was taken at Carlisle. I think I have read somewhere of his having been a lad of the Wardhouse family; but I doubt if Gordons were in Wardhouse at that time, and am undecided on that point, especially as that is likely to have been the regiment to which James would belong. John, at length, did cast up. He had escaped to France, where he entered in the Scotch Brigade and served till the peace of 1782. In the following year he returned to Scotland and wrote to my father for pecuniary assistance. He died at a place near Castle Grant about the close of last century. The unwillingness of William to speak of his brothers seems to have arisen from a conviction that they were both alive and a dread of giving the satellites of the vindictive government of Geo 11 a clue to their whereabouts. Thus, the obstinacy and selfish bigotry of the old man had ruined one half of his family, when alive, and the other half after his death.

William, like his father, to shift for himself, was brought up to be a cloth weaver:- a manufactory for coarse cloth, serges, flannels, etc. being about to be established in Peterhead for export to Norway and the Highlands, where the chief trade of the place ran at that time. The manufactory prospered for about half a century, till superseded, as staple, by twist mills and smuggling, on the establishment of peace. William had had somewhat of the pride of birth about him saying that he was distinguished from the generality of the lieges there by wearing a comely and well-powdered wig, and was moreover a stately and sedate-looking man. He married an heiress, in a small way, one Isabel Reid, whose ancestors were said to have occupied Clarkhill for two or three hundred years. They had been people of some consideration, as I have a gold wedding ring which was given to my grandmother, when a child, by her great-grandmother and the rude carving of the Poesy on it indicates a corresponding antiquity. Such trinkets were not in everybody’s possession in those days. Isabel had a maternal uncle, named James Whyte, who figures as one of the three families in Peterhead in Earl Marshall’s commission until 4th Dec. 1711 and appears to have been continued in another dated 2nd Feb. 1713 (see Arbuthnot’s Hist. of Peterhead pp77 – 79). Unluckily she had a paternal uncle also under whose guardianship she was left. The rascal managed to strip her of almost the whole of her property, and to America. There he and his family had soon become extinct as advertisements appeared in the Newspapers for heirs by the name of Reid to “The Peterhead Estate”. My father saw them but, as he said, he was not the heir, and gave himself no trouble about them!

Isabel had not been altogether stripped of her property for I recollect seeing one or two letters, missives in my father’s hands, about the sale of Fees – tenements in the town and I knew of another which must have been disponed by her husband. But these and some other papers, upon which I set a value were not permitted to reach my hands. William had by his wife thirteen children, nine of whom died in infancy, as his tombstone attests. The four who reached maturity were John, William, Margaret and Alexander. The last, the youngest and consequently a spoiled child the marks of which stuck to him while he breathed. John and William went to sea and for some time commanded West India vessels. The former, like his father, had a numerous family but like his too they all died in infancy except two daughters whom I have seen. William had only a son and he died in infancy. William left a considerable sum of money, the funded portion of which his brimstone wife had managed to get transferred into her own name; and she further managed to get the remainder divided among her own relations and family. Her husband an easy-going sailor died after several shocks of palsy, which naturally weakens the mind. But his wife who had really kept together the money always had a great influence over him and took care to have him at loggerheads with his brothers. She nearly made a quarrel between him and me but I became rather a favourite with the old man who vastly applauded my entering the Navy, and wearing the blue jacket. I had been absent a couple of years when he died and my name was not so much as mentioned in his will which, I own, did not greatly surprise me, as I was aware of the greedy selfish brought to bear upon his mind. One legacy did nettle me – it was to a man who had married a second or third cousin of his wife’s and so little did he know of him that his Christian name was left blank in the will. Absurd and irrational as this distribution of his property was, it could not be set aside from the known feuds between the brothers.

(“The Gordon Victorian Narrative, c 1850”)

1705

Perhaps William was born in about 1705, probably around Keith in Banffshire. There is a Geneanet Community Family Tree which suggests William Gordon was the son of William Gordon and Mary nee Melville Gordon) and was born in 1705 at Huntly, Aberdeen.

There was a William Gordon born on 8 May 1711 and baptised on 12 May 1711, in Inverness, the son of William Gordon and Mary Duff (Scotland Births and Baptisms). This could possibly be him.

1730

Their elder brother, William, who should have succeeded was left like his father to struggle with poverty and a Mr Stuart became the possessor of Birkenburn.

William, like his father, to shift for himself, was brought up to be a cloth weaver:- a manufactory for coarse cloth, serges, flannels, etc. being about to be established in Peterhead for export to Norway and the Highlands, where the chief trade of the place ran at that time. The manufactory prospered for about half a century, till superseded, as staple, by twist mills and smuggling, on the establishment of peace. William had had somewhat of the pride of birth about him saying that he was distinguished from the generality of the lieges there by wearing a comely and well-powdered wig, and was moreover a stately and sedate-looking man.

1736

He married an heiress, in a small way, one Isabel Reid, whose ancestors were said to have occupied Clarkhill for two or three hundred years. They had been people of some consideration, as I have a gold wedding ring which was given to my grandmother, when a child, by her great-grandmother and the rude carving of the Poesy on it indicates a corresponding antiquity. Such trinkets were not in everybody’s possession in those days.

The Geneanet Community Family Tree interpretation suggests William Gordon married Isabel Coan at Newcastle on 4 August 1736. This could result from a misinterpretation of the surname, so could be the same person.

Isabel had a maternal uncle, named James Whyte, who figures as one of the three families in Peterhead in Earl Marshall’s commission until 4th Dec. 1711 and appears to have been continued in another dated 2nd Feb. 1713 (see Arbuthnot’s Hist. of Peterhead pp77 – 79). Unluckily she had a paternal uncle also under whose guardianship she was left. The rascal managed to strip her of almost the whole of her property, and to America. There he and his family had soon become extinct as advertisements appeared in the Newspapers for heirs by the name of Reid to “The Peterhead Estate”. My father saw them but, as he said, he was not the heir, and gave himself no trouble about them!

Isabel had not been altogether stripped of her property for I recollect seeing one or two letters, missives in my father’s hands, about the sale of Fees – tenements in the town and I knew of another which must have been disponed by her husband. But these and some other papers, upon which I set a value were not permitted to reach my hands.

William had by his wife thirteen children, nine of whom died in infancy, as his tombstone attests. The four who reached maturity were John, William, Margaret and Alexander. The last, the youngest and consequently a spoiled child the marks of which stuck to him while he breathed. John and William went to sea and for some time commanded West India vessels. The former, like his father, had a numerous family but like his too they all died in infancy except two daughters whom I have seen. William had only a son and he died in infancy. William left a considerable sum of money, the funded portion of which his brimstone wife had managed to get transferred into her own name; and she further managed to get the remainder divided among her own relations and family. Her husband an easy-going sailor died after several shocks of palsy, which naturally weakens the mind. But his wife who had really kept together the money always had a great influence over him and took care to have him at loggerheads with his brothers. She nearly made a quarrel between him and me but I became rather a favourite with the old man who vastly applauded my entering the Navy, and wearing the blue jacket. I had been absent a couple of years when he died and my name was not so much as mentioned in his will which, I own, did not greatly surprise me, as I was aware of the greedy selfish brought to bear upon his mind. One legacy did nettle me – it was to a man who had married a second or third cousin of his wife’s and so little did he know of him that his Christian name was left blank in the will. Absurd and irrational as this distribution of his property was, it could not be set aside from the known feuds between the brothers.

We know the surviving children were John (GOR00015), William (GOR00016), Margaret (GOR00018) and Alexander (GOR00019). The Geneanet Community Family Tree interpretation suggests that the other siblings (who did not survive) were Andrew, another Alexander, Ann, Elizabeth, Isabel, James, Jane, Martha, and Mary, numbering nine who did not survive which coincides with the Victorian text.

1796

The Geneanet Community Family Tree interpretation suggests William Gordon died on 15 July 1776 in Newcastle. It is possible that he ended up with interests in Newcastle given that we know he was exporting to Norway, so may well have interests in North Sea ports.