Thomas Edward Gordon

Sir Thomas Edward Gordon KCIE KCB CSI (12 January 1832 – 23 March 1914) was a Scottish soldier, diplomat, and traveler. A British Army officer, he fought in India, served as a diplomat in Tehran, and travelled across the Pamirs. These days he is primarily remembered as an author of several books about India, Persia (modern day Iran), and Central Asia of the 19th century.[1]

Lake Victoria, Great Pamir, 2 May 1874, watercolor by Thomas Edward Gordon

Early life

Gordon was born on 12 January 1832 in Aberdeen and was a twin son of Captain William Gordon (1788–1834) of the 2nd Queen's Royal Regiment. His father served in the Peninsular War in Spain, and was married at Santarém, in 1818, to Marianna Carlotta Loi Gonçalves de Mello, daughter of Luiz Gonçalves de Mello, a Spanish government official in the province of Estremadura.

William Gordon was one of the sons of Adam Gordon of Griamachary Kildonan (1750–1831), whose sons and grandsons included 13 commissioned officers, a Surgeon-General, Huntly George Gordon; and a Lord Advocate, Edward Gordon, Baron Gordon of Drumearn.[1]

Alongside his twin brother, Sir John James Hood Gordon, Thomas entered the British Army, joining the 29th (Worcestershire) Regiment of Foot on 21 August 1849. He served in the Indian Mutiny campaign of 1857–1858. Later he became Military Attaché and Oriental Secretary to the British Legation in Tehran. During his visits to Persia Gordon decided to publish an account of his journey with the intention of displaying, through his observations and illustrations, evidence of the "progress and improvement" he found. In 1896 his work, Persia Revisited, was published.

In 1873–1874, he participated in the Second Yarkand Mission led by Thomas Douglas Forsyth. The main goal of the expedition was to meet Yakub Beg, the ruler of Chinese Turkestan. Gordon also joined a party that traveled west to the Pamirs and Wakhan. Gordon was accompanied on the mission by John Biddulph, Ferdinand Stoliczka, Henry Walter Bellew, Henry Trotter, and R. A. Champman. In 1876 Gordon published his account of the expedition.[2][3]

Personal life
"Chinese Taifurchis" (gunners) in Kashgar, T.E. Gordon's drawing in The Roof of the World

In 1862, Gordon married firstly, Mary Helen Sawers, daughter of Alexander Sibbald Sawers. They had four daughters, Helen Elizabeth (1863–1942), Alexa Anna (9 January 1867 – 18 November 1867), Jeanetta (1876–1963), and Violet Mary (1878–1972), and a son who died in childhood, Thomas William Gordon (1868–1876).[4][5][6][7]

Mary Helen died in 1879 and he married secondly in 1894, Charlotte Davison.[1]

He was also a painter, perhaps the first European to paint the landscapes of certain remote locations of the Pamirs.[8]

Gordon died in 1914 at his home in Kensington.[1]

Bibliography

References
  1. "Obituary: Death Of General Sir T. E. Gordon – Notable Indian Services". The Times. The Times Digital Archive. 24 March 1914. p. 10.
  2. Thomas Edward Gordon. (1876) The roof of the world: being a narrative of a journey over the high plateau of Tibet to the Russian frontier and the Oxus sources on Pamir. Edinburgh, Edmonston and Douglas. p. 171.
  3. 1917. "The Amir Yakoub Khan and Eastern Turkestan in Mid-Nineteenth Century." Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society. Vol. 4. No. 4. pp. 95-112.
  4. India, Select Births and Baptisms, 1786–1947
  5. India, Select Deaths and Burials, 1719–1948
  6. 1901 England Census
  7. Gloucestershire, England, Church of England Burials, 1813–1988
  8. Lake Victoria, Great Pamir, 2 May 1874 - one of his paintings
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