Descendants of Henry M. Gordon

Henry Gordon (1820-1910)  &  Maria Battley (1823-1901) ³

        From 1832 until 1836 Henry Gordon attended The Kings School at Parramatta - Australia's oldest still operating independent school. When the school commenced on 13 Feb. 1832 eleven-year-old Henry was one of three boys waiting on the doorstep for the doors to open. When he died he was its oldest old boy - the last survivor of the first term 1832 intake. It was said that throughout his life he maintained an association with the school and even in his last year, when just shy of his 90th birthday, he came down from Maitland to attend its annual 13th Feb. foundation Commemoration Day that had been first instigated in 1880. In respect of the 1832 first year student intake a history of the school published by the School Council in 1981 commented - "Taking a few random examples of the boys educated from the 1832 intake ... Antill became a Police Magistrate (for over 29 years) as did Gordon and Andrew McDougall. McDougall's brother John became President of the Queensland Legislative Council, whilst Forbes became Speaker of the Lower House in Queensland. Campbell became a M.L.C. and Hugh Taylor the M.L.A. for Parramatta and also its Mayor. Hassell and Macarthur became clergymen, as did Thomas Cox ... John Watsford, became the ..." ¹.
         Henry Gordon began an over 53 years duration legal career of in the Justice Department of the New South Wales civil service with the appointment on 1 Dec 1841 as Assistant Bailiff at Maitland ¹⁰. From 1843 to 1846 he was Bailiff of the Maitland Court of Requests and by 1857 the Chief Constable at Dungog and in 1859 Clerk of Petty Sessions there and agent for the sale of Crown lands. On 9 Sept. 1863 at the age of 43 years he was appointed Police Magistrate at Maitland and on 3 Sep 1875 Police Magistrate and Clerk of Petty Sessions at Wollombi and the Secretary for Lands. The positions at Wollombi respectively carried annual salaries of £300 and £50. He was appointed to Gundagai and Jugiong on 25 April 1885 and in March 1887 to Albury as Stipendary Magistrate and Commissioner of the Supreme Court ². In August 1887 he was appointed Police Magistrate at Gosford.
         The circumstances of the change of appointment from Albury to Gosford are interesting. In respect of him leaving Albury his unmarried daughter Ada wrote in a 21 Dec 1887 letter from Gosford - "I was not sorry to leave but I did not like my father being sent here to make way for the brother-in-law of the Chief Justice". The "brother-in-law" of NSW Chief Justice Frederick Matthew Darley, who was to remain the Police Magistrate at Albury for the next eight years until his retirement in June 1895, was Thomas Alexander Browne (1826-1915) who under the pseudonym of "Rolf Boldrewood" wrote the 1888 published novel "Robbery Under Arms" that in its day became a household name in Australia and made its author one of the best-known Australian novelists of the nineteenth-century.
         A 16 April 1889 Ada Gordon letter had Henry still the Police Magistrate at Gosford but expecting a change of appointment. However a August 1892 newspaper report of proceedings of Swansea Police Court indicated his substantive position was still at Gosford. During the last two months of 1894 he was noted presiding on the bench of Police Courts at Swansea, West Maitland and at Greta, and again at West Maitland in late January 1895  ¹⁸. It seems likely he retired in March that year when he reached 75 years of age after having served over 31 years as a NSW Police Magistrate. In 1900 he was living at Huntley in Fairfowl Street, Dulwich Hill ⁹. Writing of him in May 1889 when he was aged 69 his daughter Ada commented - "He looks absurdly young for his age. He never drank or smoked. Never had an illness or any trouble in his life. He has had an easy time"
         Henry and his first wife Maria Battley had eight children. Two years after Maria's 1901 death, at the age of 83 years Henry remarried 38 year old spinster Frances Eliza Atkinson, and when he was aged 85 they had a son born whilst living at 123 New Canterbury Road, Petersham. He was residing at Nerang Street, East Maitland when he died in 1910 in his 91st year.

Children of Henry Meldrum Gordon and Maria Battley were:
+ 2.     i      Meldrum Henry Gordon
   3.     ii     William Francis Robert Gordon
   4.     iii     Ada Fanny Gordon
+ 5.     iv     Lovell Gordon
   6.     v.     Ida Annie Maria Gordon
   7.     vi     Forrest Gordon
   8.    vii     Nina Forence Gordon

   9.    viii    James Deane Gordon

Children of Henry Meldrum Gordon and Frances Eliza Atkinson were:
  10.     i      Cedric Clarence Gordon

Children of Meldrum Henry Gordon and Annie Berry were:

    11.   i     Meldrum Henry Gordon
    12.   ii    Lovell Henry "Harry" Gordon
    13.  iii    Cecil Arthur William "Bill" Gordon
    14.  iv    Wilfred Ernest Augustus "Ancy" Gordon
    15.   v    Alfred Walter Gordon
    16.  vi    Nina Annie Mercia Gordon
    17.  vii   Meldrum Guy "Jack" Gordon
    18. viii   Lillian May Gordon
    19.   ix   Rachel Gordon
    20.    x   Archie Gordon

William F. R. Gordon (1846-1936) 

         In December 1867 William F. R. Gordon moved to the North Island of New Zealand where his father's sisters Sarah Ann Moir and Leititia Garmonsway resided. He spent in excess of the last half century of his life in New Plymouth where he was employed for the 32 years preceding his retirement as a draftsman with the Land & Survey Department. Possessed of talents in the areas of drawing and sketching, and music, he composed and was a bandsman in ten bands over the years. In 1880 he surreptitiously made a drawing of the Maori prophet Te Whiti, who prohibited photographs or any other likenesses of himself, which became well known in N.Z. being one of only a few likenesses of Te Whiti known to exist.

  
At age 23 ¹⁶                                             Te Whiti sketch ¹⁷

William exhibited drawings etc. at art exhibitions and received awards at the 1879 Sydney and 1880 Melbourne International Exhibitions. His work is represented in the collections of several N.Z. Museums and Art Galleries. Two such works, from the collection of the Auckland Art Gallery and the Wanganui Museum, were included in an exhibition of New Zealand and Australian colonial works of the trompe-l'œil genre held at the Adam Art Gallery in Wellington, New Zealand in the first half of 2001. His Stray Leaves is considered by authorities to be the most outstanding early Australasian work of this genre (which encompasses works in which ambiguities of the depiction of objects, such as documents on a flat surface, is deceiving of the eye). Stray Leaves was exhibited at the above mentioned Sydney and Melbourne International Exhibitions, and received a bronze medal in 1878 at the Sydney Agricultural Exhibition, and a Gold Medal at a 1881 N.Z. exhibition. It is featured on the cover of a 32 page book written about the genre and the works comprising the 2001 Wellington exhibition ⁵.
       William had no children and bequeathed the residue of his estate to create a perpetual charitable trust for the benefit of charitable organisations in City of New Plymouth. The trust is administered by the District Public Trustee, New Plymouth, and under the terms of the will the allocation of the half yearly funds distribution is approved by the Mayor of New Plymouth. Following the death of his wife Mary née Hine in May 1940 the "W. F. Gordon Bequest Fund", as it is known, made the first such half yearly distribution in December 1940 with then city Mayor Mr. Gilmour directing recipient charities use the monies to provide Christmas cheer for hospital patients and others. Over the ensuing 60 plus years a large number of New Plymouth and district charitable organisations have benefited from the tens of thousands of dollars distributed. The Annual Balance Sheet for the year 1985-86 gave NZ $2140 as the distribution for that year ⁶.

Ada  Fanny Gordon (1849-1933)    

 
5.  Lovell Gordon             

Lovell Gordon (1851-1919)  &
Charlotte Maria née Neckles (1858-1916)

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