by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2018

by Chester Harding, 1847; Credit – Wikipedia

George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom once during the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1852 – 1855. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on January 28, 1784, the eldest of the seven children of George Gordon, Lord Haddo, son and heir of George Gordon, 3rd Earl of Aberdeen, and Charlotte Baird, daughter of William Baird of Newbyth.

Lord Aberdeen had six younger siblings:

• Vice-Admiral The Honorable William Gordon (1784–1858)
• Lieutenant-Colonel The Honorable Sir Alexander Gordon (1786–1815), killed at the Battle of Waterloo
• Lady Alice Gordon (1787–1847), unmarried, Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Sophia of Gloucester
• Lieutenant-Colonel The Honorable Charles Gordon (1790–1835)
• The Honorable Sir Robert Gordon (1791–1847)
• Admiral The Honorable Sir John Gordon (1792–1869)

Lord Aberdeen’s father died on October 2, 1791, at age 27 from injuries sustained when he fell from his horse. At the age of 3 ½, Lord Aberdeen became the heir of his grandfather the 3rd Earl of Aberdeen, and was styled Lord Haddo, one of his grandfather’s subsidiary titles. Four years later, his mother died and he was brought up by Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville and William Pitt the Younger. In 1801, upon the death of his grandfather, he succeeded to his grandfather’s title as the 4th Earl of Aberdeen.

Lord Aberdeen was educated at Harrow School where two future Prime Ministers, Lord Palmerston and Robert Peel, and his cousin, the poet George, Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (6th Baron Byron) were his fellow students. He then attended St. John’s College, Cambridge. Lord Aberdeen was a student of classical studies and published research on the topography of Troy and the principles of beauty in Greek architecture. He was President of The Society of Antiquaries of London from 1812 – 1846.

Portrait of Lord Aberdeen showing his interest in classic studies by John Partridge, circa 1847; Credit – Wikipedia

On 28 July 1805, Lord Aberdeen married Lady Catherine Hamilton (1784 – 1812) daughter of John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn They had four children but they all died before the age of 20. Their mother also died young, at the age of 28, from tuberculosis.

• Lady Jane Hamilton-Gordon (1807 – 1824), died at the age of seventeen
• Lady Charlotte Hamilton-Gordon (1808 – 1818) died at the age of ten
• Lady Alice Hamilton-Gordon (1809 – 1829) died at the age of nineteen years old.
• Unnamed son, Lord Haddo (born and died November 23, 1810)

In December 1805, Lord Aberdeen took his seat in the House of Lords as a Conservative Scottish representative peer. After the death of his first wife in 1812, he joined the Foreign Service and served as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Austria. In 1814, Lord Aberdeen returned to England and received another peerage when he was created a peer of the United Kingdom, Viscount Gordon of Aberdeen, and was made a member of the Privy Council.

On July 8, 1815, Lord Aberdeen married a second time to Harriet Hamilton, Dowager Viscountess Hamilton. His second wife was born Harriet Douglas (1792 – 1833), the daughter of The Honorable John Douglas and Lady Frances Lascelles. Harriet was the paternal granddaughter of James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton and maternal granddaughter of Edward Lascelles, 1st Earl of Harewood. She was also the widow of James Hamilton, Viscount Hamilton, the heir of John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn, and was also the brother of Lord Aberdeen’s first wife. They had five children:

• George John James Hamilton-Gordon, 5th Earl of Aberdeen (1816 – 1864), married Lady Mary Baillie, daughter of George Baillie of Jerviswoode and Mellerstain, had six children
• General The Honorable Sir Alexander Hamilton-Gordon (1817 – 1890), married Caroline Herschel, daughter of Sir John Herschel, 1st Baronet, had nine children
• The Honorable Frances Hamilton-Gordon (1819 – 1834), died at the age of fifteen
• Reverend The Honorable Douglas Hamilton-Gordon (1824 – 1901), married his first cousin Lady Ellen Douglas, daughter of George Sholto Douglas, 17th Earl of Morton, had five children
• Arthur Charles Hamilton-Gordon, 1st Baron Stanmore (1829 – 1912), married Rachel Emily Shaw-Lefevre, had two children

Lord Aberdeen by Thomas Lawrence, 1829; Credit – Wikipedia

It was during his second marriage, that Lord Aberdeen’s career in Parliament really took off. He served in Cabinets as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1828), Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (1834 – 1835), and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1828 – 1830 and 1841 – 1846). During this time period, Lord Aberdeen moved away from the Tory Party and joined Prime Minister Robert Peel’s Peelites. After Peel’s death in 1850, he became the recognized leader of the Peelites.

Following the downfall of the Conservative minority government under Lord Derby in December 1852, Lord Aberdeen formed a new government and became Prime Minister. During Lord Aberdeen’s term as Prime Minister, the British Empire was involved in the Crimean War which was originally fought to preserve the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, which was a part of the Ottoman Empire. The British Empire’s uneasy alliance with France and the Ottoman Empire in the mismanagement of the Crimean War caused Lord Aberdeen to rapidly lose popularity and in February 1855, he was forced to resign as Prime Minister. He retired from active politics and spoke for the last time in the House of Lords in 1858.

Lord Aberdeen shortly before his death in 1860; Credit – Wikipedia

George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen died on December 14, 1860, aged 76, at Argyll House, St. James’s, London was buried in the family vault at St. John the Evangelist Church in Great Stanmore, Harrow, Middlesex, England.

St. John the Evangelist Church; Credit – By Jon Hansen – Stanmore. St John the Evangelist, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62269361

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Works Cited

• Baird, Julia. Victoria The Queen. Random House, 2016.
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hamilton-Gordon,_4._Earl_of_Aberdeen
• En.wikipedia.org. (2018). George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen. [online] Available at:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Smith-Stanley,_14th_Earl_of_Derby[Accessed 27 Jul. 2018].
• Erickson, Carolly. Her Little Majesty: The Life of Queen Victoria.Simon and Schuster, 1997.
• Hubbard, Kate. Serving Victoria: Life In The Royal Household. Harper Collins Publishers, 2012