George Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen

Monument

George Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister, has a memorial bust in the west aisle of the north transept of Westminster Abbey. This is of marble on a bronze bracket by sculptor Matthew Noble, 1874. The inscription reads:

George Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, K.T. K.G. Born January 28th 1784. Died December 14th 1860. Ambassador, Secretary of State, Prime Minister. Buried at Great Stanmore, Middlesex.

His life

He was a child of George Gordon, Lord Haddo and his wife Charlotte (Baird) and was born in Edinburgh. After the death of his father the family moved to London and he attended Harrow School. William Pitt the Younger became one of his guardians and he went on to Cambridge university. In 1801 he became the 4th Earl of Aberdeen and undertook the Grand Tour of Europe, meeting Napoleon in Paris. He did much work on Haddo House in Aberdeenshire and in 1805 married Catherine Hamilton (1784-1812) a daughter of the 1st Marquess of Abercorn. Their daughters were Jane, Caroline and Alice.

He was Foreign and Colonial Secretary from 1828-1835 under the Duke of Wellington, and Foreign Secretary under Sir Robert Peel. In 1852 he became Prime Minister and resigned his office in 1855. He died at Argyll House in London and was buried in the old church at Stanmore in the Abercorn family vault.

Further reading

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004