Among his best-known works are the lengthy narratives Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; many of his shorter lyrics in . For information and online condolences, please visit:www.northviewfuneralchapel.com. Colonel Valentine Baker led an Egyptian force out of Suakin and was badly defeated by 1,000 Haddendowa warriors who declared their loyalty to the Mahdi under Osman Digna at Al-Teb with 2,225 Egyptian soldiers and 96 officers killed. [90] During the American Civil War, when the Union blockade had cut off the American South from the world economy, the price of Egyptian cotton, known as "white gold" had skyrocketed as British textile mills turned to Egypt as an alternative source of cotton, causing an economic blossoming of Egypt that ended abruptly in 1865. [104], Besides acting as an administrator and explorer, Gordon had to act as a diplomat, dealing carefully with Muteesa I, the Kabaka (king) of the Buganda, who ruled most of what is today southern Uganda, a man who did not welcome the Egyptian expansion into the Great Lakes region. George Gordon James Obituary - The Arizona Republic Burial will follow in the Evergreen Lawn Cemetery at George, IA. In Khartoum, Gordon attended a dinner with the Governor-General, Ismail Aiyub Pasha, entertained with barely dressed belly dancers whom one of Gordon's officers drunkenly attempted to have sex with, leading to a disgusted Gordon walking out, saying he was shocked that Aiyub allowed these things to happen in his palace. If there is anything that I admire nearly as much as the superb scholarship of Zeng Guofan, it is the military qualities of this fine officer. A militia of Europeans and Asians was raised for the defence of the city and placed under the command of an American, Frederick Townsend Ward, and occupied the country to the west of Shanghai. [40], Gordon was honest and incorruptible, and unlike many Chinese officers, did not steal the money that was meant to pay his men, but rather insisted on paying the Ever Victorious Army on time and in full. [133] A deeply depressed Gordon wrote in his letter declining the offer that he knew, for reasons that he refused to explain, that he had only ten years left to live, and he wanted to do something great and grand in his last ten years. [117], Slavery was the basis of the Sudanese economy, and Gordon's attempts to end the slave trade meant taking on very powerful vested interests, most notably Rahama Zobeir, known as the "King of the Slavers" as he was the richest and most powerful of all the slave traders in the entire Sudan. Please know Nancy that you and the family are in our thoughts and prayers that God would walk with you through this difficult time. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Raymond Stampede and Exhibition or to the Canadian Cancer Society. By September 1882, the Egyptian position in the Sudan had grown perilous. He loved his Heavenly Father and his Saviour, and he was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for which he held many positions and worked faithfully in many capacities. He ran Gordon's Flea Market for over 50 years and was the owner of Gordon's Construction Company. [87], Instead, the Ottoman-Egyptian system had defeated him with almost all of Gordon's reforms having failed owing to the venality of the bureaucracy who shared absolutely none of Gordon's moral outrage at slavery and injustice, and Gordon's dreams of making things better for the ordinary people were dissolved in the face of greed and the self-interest of others. His students and attendees have included people from Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine, Canada, Ireland and all 50 states all of whom traveled to and stayed in Isabella. In a world moving inexorably towards conformity, it would be well to remember Gordon of Khartoum. Jackie (Meisner) Reinke, 78, died unexpectedly at home on Jan. 27, 2022. [201] However, Faught wrote that there was a fundamental difference between Gordon and the Mahdi in that Gordon never tried to convert the Muslims of the Sudan to Christianity whereas the Mahdi was an "Islamic extremist" who believed he would establish a worldwide caliphate, looking forward to the day when he would "see the world bow before him". [38] Moreover, Burgevine made little effort to hide his racism, and his relations with the Chinese were very difficult at the best of times. Gordon agreed with Lord Elgin that after the Chinese authorities had murdered a group of British and French officers travelling under a white flag to parley that a reprisal was in order, but called the burning of the Summer Palace "vandal-like" and informed his sister in a letter that "it made one's heart sore" to burn it. The men of the Gordon family had served as officers in the British Army for four generations, and as a son of a general, Gordon was raised to be the fifth generation; the possibility that Gordon would pursue anything other than a military career seems never to have been considered by his parents. George Gordon Obituary - Trident Society Gordon then returned to Khartoum, and went again into Darfur to suppress the slave traders. He was so erratic, capricious, utterly unreliable, his mood changed so often, his temper was abominable, he was frequently drunk, and yet with all that, he had a tremendous sense of honour and great abilities". [116], Gordon travelled north to Cairo to meet with Baring and suggest the solution that Egypt suspend its interest payments for several years to allow Isma'il to pay the arrears owed to his soldiers and civil servants, arguing that once the Egyptian government was stabilised, then Egypt could start paying its debts without fear of causing a revolution. George Gordon Obituary [233], In 1886, the Western Hospital for Fistula, Piles and other Diseases of the Rectum, at 278 Vauxhall Bridge Road, and backing onto Vincent Square London,[234] was renamed in honour of Gordon. [31] When Gordon arrived at Hong Kong, he was disappointed to learn he was "just too late for the fighting". He was deeply loved by all who knew him and he will be dearly missed every day, with joyful anticipation of an eventual heavenly reunion. It was a highly dangerous job that frequently put him under enemy fire, and led to him being wounded for the first time when a Russian sniper put a bullet into him. [60], Following the death of his father, he undertook extensive social work in Gravesend, feeding homeless boys whom he found begging on the street while also attempting to find them homes and jobs. The matter ended with Gordon's imprisonment and transfer to Massawa. General Gordon was a figure outside and above the ranks of military and naval commanders." We would like to offer our sincere support to anyone coping with grief. [95] The younger Russell was described by his own father as an alcoholic and spendthrift who "was beyond help" as it was always the "same story-idleness, self-indulgence, gambling, and constant promises" broken time after time, leading his father to get him a job in the Sudan, where his laziness infuriated Gordon to no end. [8] A man of medium stature, with striking blue eyes, the charismatic Gordon had the ability to inspire men to follow him anywhere. An official certificate recognizing your purchase will be included with your email receipt. [192] Gordon's armoured steamers continued to sail in and out of Khartoum with little difficulty for the first six months of the siege, and it was not until September 1884 that the armoured steamers first had trouble reaching the city. Find George Gordon obituaries and memorials at Legacy.com In defiance of those instructions, after evacuating about 2,500 civilians he retained a smaller group of soldiers and non-military men. In July 1878, Suleiman Zobeir had rebelled again, leading Gordon and his close friend Gessi to take to the field. [95], The Egyptian authorities had been extending their control southwards since the 1820s. May you know God's Strength ,Peace and Comfort as you face the days ahead. [85] In 1872, Gordon was sent to inspect the British military cemeteries in the Crimea, and when passing through Constantinople, he made the acquaintance of the Prime Minister of Egypt, Raghib Pasha. Share Obituary. JAMIE WYBLE OBITUARY. "Death is swallowed up in victory." [43] Under fire from the Taiping forces, Gordon's men chopped up the wooden stakes the Taipings had placed in the canal, thereby allowing Gordon to outflank the main Taiping defence line and to enter the main canal connecting Quinsan to Suzhou. [102] Faught argued that since no one else who knew Gordon in Equatoria described him in these terms, and given that Gordon's accusation that Chaill-Long was a spy for Aiyub Pasha seems to be justified, that Chaill-Long was engaging in character assassination as an act of revenge. [257] On the basis of such statements and actions, Nutting argued that Gordon's suicidal courage of going into battle armed only with his rattan cane, which so impressed the Victorian public, reflected darker desires. The prince keeps a great state and I was introduced to him with much ceremony. [87] Before Gordon boarded the ship at Alexandria that was to take him home, he sent off a series of long telegrams to various ministers in London full of Biblical verse and quotations that he claimed offered the solution to all of the problems of modern life. [254] Even more devastatingly, Strachey depicted Gordon as a monumental hypocrite, noting the contrast between Gordon's lofty Christian ideas of love, compassion, charity, grace, and hope vs. a career full of hate, war, carnage, death, and destruction. [40] Gordon's bravery in battle, his string of victories, apparent immunity to bullets and his intense, blazing blue eyes led many Chinese to believe that Gordon had supernatural powers and had harnessed the Qi (the mystical life-force traditionally believed in China to govern everything) in some extraordinary way. [134] Gordon found the life of a private secretary to be, in his words, a "living crucifixion" that was unbearably boring, leading him to resign with the intention of going to East Africa, particularly Zanzibar, to suppress the slave trade. [172] Baring disapproved of sending Gordon to the Sudan, writing in a report to London that: "A man who habitually consults the Prophet Isaiah when he is in a difficulty is not apt to obey the orders of anyone". Gladstone himself took Gordon's attacks on his Sudan policy very personally. Thence he returned to Cairo and resigned his Sudan appointment. Cremation has taken place. [22] As he travelled to Bessarabia, he commented in his letters home about the richness and fertility of the Romanian countryside, which produced delicious fruits and vegetables in great abundance, and the poverty of the Romanian peasants. Share. Born Geoffrey George Gordon FitzClarence, he was the son of William FitzClarence, 2nd Earl of Munster (19 May 1824 - 30 April 1901) and Wilhelmina Kennedy-Erskine (27 June 1830 - 9 October 1906). [189] Gordon had a low opinion of the Egyptian, Turkish, and Arab Sudanese troops under his commandwhom he constantly described as a mutinous, badly disciplined, and ill-trained rabble good only for looting but had a much higher opinion of his Black Sudanese soldiers, most of them former slaves who would rather die fighting as free men than live as slaves again; it was well known that the Mahdi's forces were going to enslave the Blacks of Khartoum once they took the city. Staveley selected Gordon, who had been made a brevet major in December 1862 and the nomination was approved by the British government. George Gordon Obituary Deepest condolences for George's loss and my heartfelt sympathy to family and friends at this sad time. The employees sent by the Moldovan government to take over the ceded territory have been receiving bribes and trafficking in the most disgraceful manner. However, he made his military reputation in China, where he was placed in command of the "Ever Victorious Army", a force of Chinese soldiers led by European officers which was instrumental in putting down the Taiping Rebellion, regularly defeating much larger forces. [179], Gordon made all of his personal dispatches to London public (there was no Official Secrets Act at the time) in attempts to win public opinion over to his policy, writing on one dispatch: "Not secret as far as I am concerned".