William Gordon (diplomat)

Sir William Gordon (1726–1798) was a British diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1777 to 1783.

Early life

Gordon was the eldest of William Gordon, a merchant and planter of St Mary's, Kingston, Jamaica, and his wife Susanna Gordon. He was educated at Glasgow University from 1739 to 1745 and at Leyden University from 1745 to 1746. He undertook a Grand Tour with William Dowdeswell from 1746. After his father died, he passed the plantations and mercantile business in the West Indies to his brothers, and settled in London.[1]

Career

Lord Sandwich appointed Gordon as Minister to the Diet at Ratisbon in April in 1764 and then envoy to Denmark on 28 June 1765. However he never took up the post and was instead Minister at Brussels from November 1765 to 1777. He was created Knight of the Bath on 3 February 1775. He married Mary Phillipps, widow of Samuel Phillipps of Garendon Park, and daughter of Thomas Allsopp of Ashbourne, Derbyshire on 2 July 1776.

Gordon decided to seek a seat in Parliament and when one fell vacant at Portsmouth in 1777, he resigned his post in Brussels. At a by-election on 26 November 1777 he was returned as Member of Parliament for Portsmouth. He held the seat in the 1780 general election. In September 1780 he was appointed Clerk of the Green Cloth and held the post until it was abolished in March 1782. He vacated his seat in Parliament in July 1783 in exchange for a large government pension.[1]

Later life

Gordon died on 26 Jan. 1798.[1]

gollark: Latency probably wouldn't be *awful* if it ran on the same device as the Minecraft world, but it would probably still be a bit slow.

gollark: Wait, no, you already said something about "while event.pull()" or something being bad, never mind. I can't think of alternatives other than having the data reader thing only send data when it gets a message requesting it, or bringing in an HTTP server or something to store everything, but those would also both not be efficient.

gollark: Ah. Hmm. Make it pull from the queue a bit faster than the other end sends messages?

gollark: You would still get a massive backlog if you didn't read it at the same speed it was sent, but you could use the linked cards to send it directly/only to the one computer which needs it really fast.

gollark: You would still have to spam and read messages very fast, but it wouldn't affect anything else.

References

"GORDON, Sir William (1726-98), of Garendon Park, Leics". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 9 October 2017.

Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by Maurice Suckling Peter Taylor	Member of Parliament for Portsmouth 1777–1783 With: Maurice Suckling Hon. Robert Monckton Sir Henry Fetherstonhaugh, Bt	Succeeded by Sir Henry Fetherstonhaugh, Bt Hon. Thomas Erskine
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Philip Stanhope	British envoy to the Imperial Diet at Ratisbon 1764–1765	Succeeded by Fulke Greville
Preceded by Sir James Porter FRS	British Minister in Brussels 1765–1777	Succeeded by Alleyne Fitzherbert

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[HOP-1] "GORDON, Sir William (1726-98), of Garendon Park, Leics". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 9 October 2017.