Gordon, LORD GEORGE

Gordon, LORD GEORGE, was born in London, 26th December 1751, the third son of the third Duke of Gordon. From Eton he entered the navy, and rose to be lieutenant, but quitted the service during the American war, after a dispute with the Admiralty. Elected in 1774 M.P. for the pocket borough of Ludgershall, Wiltshire, he presently attacked both sides with such freedom as to give rise to the saying that there were 'three parties in parliament—the ministry, the opposition, and Lord George Gordon.' Still he displayed considerable talent in debate, and no deficiency of wit or argument. A bill having, in 1778, passed the legislature for the relief of Roman Catholics from certain penalties and disabilities (see CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION), the Protestant Association of London was, among other societies, formed for the purpose of procuring its repeal, and in November 1779 Lord George was elected its president. On 2d June 1780 he headed a vast and excited mob of 50,000 persons, who, decked with blue cockades, marched in procession from St George's Fields to the House of Commons to present a petition for the repeal of the measure. Dreadful riots ensued in the metropolis, lasting five days, in the course of which many Catholic chapels and private dwelling-houses, Newgate prison, and the mansion of the chief-justice, Lord Mansfield, were destroyed. The magistrates feared to read the Riot Act, but at length on the 7th, when thirty-six fires were blazing at once, the troops were called out by the king, and everywhere drove the rioters before them, 210 being killed, 248 wounded, and 135 arrested, of whom 21 were afterwards executed. Property to the amount of £180,000 had been destroyed in the riots, a vivid description of which is given in Dickens's Barnaby Rudge. Lord George himself was tried for high-treason; but Erskine's defence got him off on the ground of absence of treasonable design. His subsequent conduct seemed that of a person of unsound mind. Having, in 1786, refused to come forward as a witness in a court of law, he was excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury for contempt. In 1787 he was convicted, on two official informations, for a pamphlet reflecting on the laws and criminal justice of the country, and for publishing a libel on Marie Antoinette and the French ambassador in London. To evade sentence he retired to Holland, but was sent back to England, and apprehended at Birmingham. He died in Newgate of fever, 1st November 1793, having latterly become a proselyte to Judaism. There is a vindication of him by Dr Robert Watson (1795).