GORDON, Charles RC Priest, "Priest Gordon", Reverend Mr ¹

   Cause of his death was disease of the heart over several years.²

   Another name for Charles was GORDON, Charles Catholic Clergyman.²

  General Notes:

Charles Gordon was a man whose personality and work was praised and admired by people of all sorts, predominantly because of his charitable love for his fellow human beings. He was most noted for his presence and labour in relation to St Peter's parish and school in Aberdeen. A more detailed sketch of his life and career by Monsignor Sandy MacWilliam may be found at http://www.scalan.co.uk/StPeters.htm, where an general outline of Catholic history from pre-Reformation times to the modern period of St Peter's parish is presented, summarised aptly thus: "The story of Catholicism in Aberdeen is unique in Scotland therefore, in that it is unbroken and continuous.".

"On 2nd July, 1795, he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop George Hay, vicar apostolic of the Lowland District, just under the room where his uncle, Bishop John Geddes, lay slowly dying. He remained in Aberdeen with his brother, Mr. John Gordon, who was in charge of the Aberdeen congregation; and when the latter was appointed procurator of the college of Aquhorties, he succeeded him in that charge in 1799...

...in 1848, when his health began visibly to decline he applied for and obtained another (assistant), Rev. John Ritchie. He still carried on his share of the parish work to the best of his ability, and to the end of his life he kept the instruction of the children in his own hands. In 1850 he was induced to leave St. Peter's and live in a house adjoining the schools in Constitution Street. But he had no intention of retiring from active responsibility; he was still in charge and it is characteristic of the man that it was not until 1854 that Bishop Kyle was able to prevail upon him to resign the management of the temporalities of the mission into the hands of the Rev. John Sutherland, appointed that year to St. Peter's along with Rev. William Stopani, recently come from the Scots College, Rome, Next year he was dead...

St. Peter's Church, Chapel Court, 28 November, 1855. A packed church hung with drapings of mourning, the congregation over flowing into Chapel Court and a dense and hushed crowd outside in Castle Street under the leaden sky. Within, Bishop James Kyle, vicar apostolic of the Northern District, is celebrating a Pontifical Mass of Requiem for the Rev. Charles Gordon, late pastor of St. Peter's, whose body lies before the altar. After Mass, at one o'clock, the funeral procession begins. An eye-witness tells of the scene— the hushed crowds, the closed shops, the long line of the procession down King Street, the Lord Provost and several of the magistrates following the coffin which was carried by relays of members of the congregation, the double line of redcoated soldiers of the 19th Highlanders on either side. One who was present remembers that, as the cortege was entering the Snow Churchyard in Old Aberdeen, the last of the mourners was leaving Castle Street. Who was this priest to whom such unprecedented honours were paid?

...On the stone that covers his earthly remains is the inscription, as simple and unpretentious as his life:
'Charles Gordon, priest. Missionary Apostolic in the Lowland District of Scotland. Died at Aberden on 24 November, 1855: 84 years old'."

from St Peter's Church Aberdeen 1804~1979 by Monsignor Sandy MacWilliam

When Charles Gordon died in 1855, his death certificate recorded him as a Catholic Clergyman, aged 84 years. Being an 1855 certificate it also recorded additional information, namely that he had been born in the "Parish of Belly, Banffshire", and was 63 years in Aberdeen. Both of his parents were deceased. ³

  Medical Notes:

James Coutts, Surgeon, who saw the patient on 23 November 1855, certified the cause of the death of Charles Gordon.

Charles Gordon was buried in the Snow Church, Aberdeen, as certified by the undertaker, James McDonald.

The death was notified to the Registrar at Aberdeen by Charles Maguire, inmate, on 26 Novemebr 1855.

Note: In Constitution Street the Franciscan Sisters cared for old and infirm patients at Nazareth House. ²