The George William Gordon Part I – Menace or martyr

GEORGE WILLIAM Gordon was the son of Joseph Gordon, a Scotsman, who became a planting attorney for absentee proprietors of land in Jamaica, and who himself was a landed proprietor and member of the Assembly. George’s mother was an enslaved African. Joseph Gordon also had his white wife and family.

George William Gordon purchased his own freedom and that of his mother and sisters. As a young man, he took his education, business and religion seriously. It is written that “his letters and speeches show him to be a man of culture, education, breadth of vision and liberalism”.

WHITE PEOPLE

At an early age, he was attracted by the respectable, intellectual and religious society of white people. He gained the confidence, respect and goodwill of a well-to-do white lady from whom he secured a loan of £1,000, which he repaid with interest.

That loan was probably the foundation of his business ventures, while his father also helped him to establish himself as a produce dealer. The acquisition of land seemed of great importance to him. It started with 10 acres given to him by his father in 1839 at Gordon Castle in the Port Royal Mountains for £100. As the years went by, he bought and leased many acres of land in the parishes of Kingston, St Andrew, Hanover, St James, Westmoreland, St David, St Thomas, Portland and St Mary.

George William Gordon was credited by his friends and associates for being truly religious in spirit and in conduct. His religion appeared to have been Catholic in outlook and association. He acted as chairman at the meetings of various denominations, and preached regularly from their pulpits. He was baptised in the Established Church of England, was attached to the United Presbyterian Mission in Jamaica and frequented the Congregational Church.

BAPTISMAL RITUAL

Convinced that total immersion was the appropriate baptismal ritual prescribed by the scriptures, he was publicly baptised by Reverend Phillippo of the Baptist Mission. In later life, he gave support to the Native Baptists for whom he left the Congregational Church. Gordon also participated in the Great Revival of the 1860s.

On November 10, 1860, he preached in the marketplace at Chapelton in Clarendon and witnessed the first case of revivalist conversion when the Holy Ghost fell on all those who were present. There was also a meeting in Parade, Kingston, with Gordon’s help. It is said that an immense multitude of people attended. In 1862, he was still busy with an abundance of religious activities, opening mission stations and expressing anxiety for remote districts still unserved.

CHURCH MATTERS

From 1860, Gordon was making representation to the bishop on church matters, and to the governor and secretary of state. In the legislature, his proposal for the disestablishment of the Church of England, which he claimed taxed a large portion of the population which it did not serve, was scoffed at. This was one of the factors which brought him into dispute with the devout Anglican Edward John Eyre.

Like his father, Gordon became a member of the House of Assembly in 1844, and, throughout his life, the state of affairs in the country was quite messy. The country was still in the social and economic turmoils that Emancipation in 1838 had brought to the emancipated people. He was very busy in the House, paying close attention to the proceedings and making contributions himself. There were many contentious financial issues, which seemed unresolvable.

In 1949, Governor Sir Charles Grey suddenly dissolved the legislature. Neither Gordon nor his father was among those elected to the new Assembly, which met in September 1849. It was not until 1863 that George William Gordon was back in the Assembly, and he brought much fire the second time around.

BURDENSOME CONDITIONS

Gordon felt much sympathy for the underprivileged and detested the burdensome conditions in which they existed. His outspoken criticism caused much irritation to his legislative colleagues and his contemporaries in an age when attacks on constituted authority were considered dangerous to a significant degree.

Gordon became a justice of the peace in several parishes and was a member of the St Thomas Vestry, which then administered local affairs. Gordon was also involved in civic and political matters in Kingston. He was a visiting officer of the Morant Bay jail. In February 1862, he unsuccessfully contested a seat for St Thomas in the House.

When Governor Darling went on leave, clouded in much controversy, Lieutenant-Governor Eyre replaced him and ended up dissolving the Assembly. Fresh elections were held in 1863 and that was when Gordon was returned to the House and became Eyre’s most outspoken critic.

RELIGIOUS NEEDS

In one of his visits to the Morant Bay jail in the capacity of justice of the peace, Gordon made certain observations about the conditions of the place and made some recommendations, including one that said attention should be made to the religious needs of the inmates. Governor Darling saw the notes before he went on leave and he was livid. He instructed his secretary to write a letter to reprimand Gordon for overstepping his boundaries.

Among other things, the letter said, “Your conduct appears to His Excellency to exhibit such an unwarranted assumption of authority, and such extreme ignorance of your proper functions as a magistrate, as to render it inexpedient that you should any longer be intrusted with these functions, and His Excellency therefore feels it his duty to supersede you in the commission of the peace for the several parishes in which your name is at present included.”

It was a threat to Gordon to relieve him of his magistrate’s duty. That letter and another one were to precipitate a bitter enmity between Gordon and the incoming lieutenant-governor, Edward John Eyre. It was an acrimony that climaxed into the murder of Gordon and the toppling of Eyre from his tyrannical pedestal.