Career
Educated at Inverness Royal Academy, Royal High School, Edinburgh, the University of Glasgow and Edinburgh University, he was called to the Scottish bar in 1835. He was appointed Solicitor General for Scotland from 1866 to 1867, and Lord Advocate from 1867 to 1868 and again from 1874 to 1876. He was Dean of the Faculty of Advocates from 1868 to 1874.
He became a Queen"s Counsel in 1868, and was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1874.
He was a made a Law Life Peer in 1876 as Baron Gordon of Drumearn, in the County of Stirling, and sat as a Lord of Appeal from 1876 to 1879. He died in Brussels while travelling to Homburg for his health and is buried with his family against the original north boundary wall of Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh.