Reverend Robert Augustus Gordon
(1815-1895)
3 July 1861

Volume 4, page 165, sitting number 4732.

[The sitter was identified on the album page. An inscription under the adjacent portrait makes it clear that his wife was originally Miss E. Lindsay.]

Born in or about 1816 on the island of Dominica in the West Indies, Robert Augustus Gordon was the son of John Gordon (1788-1836), a merchant and slave owner who received several thousand pounds compensation from the British government when slavery was abolished in the British Empire.

He was ordained a deacon in 1839 and a priest in 1840. On 27 April 1847 he married Elizabeth Frances Lindsay, born at Orissa in India. The marriage produced no children

Reverend Gordon appears on the 1851 census as the Rector of Avington, living at Avington in Berkshire with his wife and three servants. By 1861 he had become the Rector of Barley in Hertfordshire. In 1871 he was still the Rector of Barley but the couple were now living on South Street in Mayfair, where one of their neighbours was Florence Nightingale. In 1881 they were maintaining a large household staffed by nine servants in Tilney Street, Mayfair.

Reverend Gordon died, aged 79, on 4 August 1895 at his residence, 24 Eccleston Square in London. He left an estate valued at £15,524. According to a long obituary in the Herts and Camb Reporter (9 August 1895): 'Of friends the rev. gentleman had many, both among clergy and laity, and his acts of kindness and charity were largely bestowed on his poorer parishioners and suffering humanity generally. The restoration and interior decoration of Barley Church were largely due to his benificence [sic]; for in 1871, he, together with Mrs Gordon, contributed £4,700 toward the total cost, reaching nearly £6,000, the remainder being raised by other subscribers. For beauty and costly workmanship few village Churches or even town Churches can excel this fine, old Norman structure, built 700 years ago.'