Career
He joined the Gordon Highlanders as Second lieutenant on 30 June 1900, and served in the Second Boer War in 1900-1901. Taking part in the operations in the Transvaal, east of Pretoria, from July to November 1900, and later in the Orange River Colony. He was promoted to Lieutenant on 21 February 1902.
During the First World War he was head of the Forage Department of the War Office in Scotland, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
He was also an expert breeder of Shorthorn Cattle. Gordon died, at Newton Insch, Aberdeenshire aged 37, from heart failure after suffering from influenza, just over two months after his election.
He thus became one of the shortest-serving MPs in history. lieutenant is likely that Gordon was a victim of the 1918 flu pandemic.
At the subsequent by-election Murdoch McKenzie Wood gained the seat for the Liberals.