Background
He was born on 19 October 1833 at Fayal, Azores, the only son of Adam Durnford Gordon, a retired captain of the Bengal cavalry and teacher of Hindustani, and his wife Harriet Gordon, who were cousins. His parents were in comfortable
circumstances, his mother having inherited £20,000.
Even in his early years he established a pattern of interests which he sustained throughout his life. As an adolescent he was taught riding and by 1852 was beginning his racing career. His fecklessness was apparent early. He himself said
that his 'strength and health were broken by dissipation and humbug'.
Education
He was educated at Cheltenham College, the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1848-51 and the Royal Worcester Grammar School in 1852.
Career
His father secured Gordon an offer of a position in South Australia. He sailed in the Julia
and arrived in Adelaide on 11 November 1853. On the 24th he joined the
South Australian Mounted Police. He had hoped for a captaincy, and
according to his own account was very near getting one 'but the rules
compelled a man properly speaking to serve as a trooper'. He seems to
have been content with his lot, since he wrote to his friend Charley
Walker, 'I have done well, my boy, which you will be glad to hear and
have got an easy billet in a station that suits me well, with the hope
of a speedy promotion'. For two years he was stationed at Penola in the
Mount Gambier region where he led a routine life with no remarkable
incidents or exploits to interrupt his daily duties. He resigned on 4
November 1855 ostensibly to become a drover. His superior officer wrote
that he had conducted himself 'remarkably well' and that he was sorry to
lose him. Instead of droving Gordon took up horse-breaking in the
south-east. He was in touch either directly or indirectly with his
family in England, and his father gave him financial assistance until
his death on 17 June 1857. In that year Gordon met Tension-Wods who was able to supply him with books and whose friendship stimulated Gordon's interest in literature.
On 29 April 1859 Gordon's mother died and on 26 October 1861 he
received from her estate a legacy of £7000. Meantime he had continued as
horse-breaker and steeplechase rider in country areas. The main records
of him in this period concern his successes and failures at race
meetings in the Penola and Mount Gambier districts. The legacy brought
him relative prosperity. On 20 October 1862 he married Margaret Park,
who was born in Glasgow. She had little education but was an excellent
horsewoman. Even her hard work and practical good sense could not save
Gordon from his financial imprudence and increasing melancholia. In
March 1864 Gordon bought Dingley Dell, a cottage near Port MacDonnell.
He also speculated in land and was mortgagee for several landholders.
His first publication, 'The Feud', appeared in the Border Watch,
30 August. A new phase in Gordon's life began on 11 January 1865 when he
received a deputation asking him to stand for the South Australian
parliament. In the next two months he managed to combine steeplechasing
and political campaigning. The sitting members were defeated and with Riddoch,
a loyal friend and lifelong supporter, Gordon was returned to the House
of Assembly for the Victoria district, topping the poll. He combined
his parliamentary duties with steeplechasing, travelling to races in
Adelaide, Ballarat and Melbourne, and publishing poems. He resigned on
10 November 1866, probably because he had invested in land in Western
Australia. On 11 December with Lambton Mount he landed at Bunbury with
some 5000 sheep; in a few months his flock had been reduced by about
one-third. In March 1867 he returned to Adelaide, gave up his temporary
home in Glenelg and went back to Mount Gambier. His only child, Annie
Lindsay, was born at Robe on 3 May. In June his first two volumes of
poetry were published: Ashtaroth on 10 June and Sea Spray and Smoke Drift
on the 19th. Their financial failure together with his losses in
Western Australia and racing must have dissipated much of the legacy
from his mother's estate.
On 22 November he rented Craig's livery stables in Ballarat, and in
January 1868 he joined the Ballarat Troop of Light Horse. In March he
was promoted senior sergeant but suffered a serious horse-riding
accident, one of many that undermined his physical condition. On 14
April his daughter died. These private misfortunes, together with the
failure of the livery stables, led to his wife's departure from Ballarat
on 25 September. A small legacy enabled Gordon to settle his debts and
on 1 October he left to stay for two months in Melbourne with Robert
Power. His reputation was then growing. The Australasian printed articles on his feats of horsemanship, and he was praised for his poetic talents by the Colonial Monthly.
In spite of private difficulties he continued his racing career, adding
to his renown for recklessness and daring. In the early months of 1869
he was riding in various parts of Victoria, and in May he took lodgings
in Brighton where his wife rejoined him. He was also continuing to
publish poetry and prose. On 12 March 1870 he had another bad riding
accident and wrote to Riddoch, 'I am hurt inside somewhere'.
In 1868 Gordon heard that he was heir to the family estate, Esslemont,
in Scotland. He was convinced of his right to the estate but determined
not to return to England. His letters show his increasing melancholia
and preoccupation with financial difficulties. He hoped, by acquiring
Esslemont, to guarantee his wife's financial security. In June he
received news that the entail of Esslemont had been abolished and
therefore he would not receive the inheritance. On 23 June 1870 his Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes was published and Kendall
showed him a proof copy of the enthusiastic review he had written. At
dawn the next morning Gordon went to the beach at Brighton and shot
himself.
The pattern of Gordon's life was strange. If the purpose of his
migration to Australia was to escape the debilitating attractions of the
company into which he had fallen as a young man in England, the life
that he led merely served to exacerbate his own temperamental
weaknesses. His real love was steeplechasing yet he had sufficient
poetic talent to develop into a more substantial writer than he ever
became. Long after he died, enthusiastic admirers made pilgrimages to
his grave, to Dingley Dell and to other places associated with him. A
bust unveiled on 11 May 1934 in Westminster Abbey by the Duke of York
attests his extraordinary popularity. His literary reputation has now
declined. His popular ballads with their narrative drive and vitality
are in marked contrast to his more ambitious poems which, heavily
imitative of Romantic and Victorian poetry, are marred by carelessness
and inattention to detail. But his successes and failures in his poetry,
as in his own life, are a reflection of the tastes and interests of his
time.