Major Sir William Eden Evans Gordon (8 August 1857 – 31 October 1913)The Times, 3 November 1913 p. 11d was a British politician, military officer, and diplomat. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) who had served as a military diplomat in India.
As a political officer on secondment from the British Indian Army from 1876 to 1897 during the British Raj, he was attached to the Foreign Department of the Indian Government. His career in India was a mixture of military administrative business on the volatile North-West Frontier, and of diplomacy and foreign policy in advising maharajas or accompanying the viceroy in the princely states.
After leaving the army, Evans Gordon returned to Britain and in 1900 was elected as Conservative MP for Stepney on an "anti-alien platform". As a result of the pogroms in Eastern Europe, Jews were arriving in increasing numbers in Britain to stay or en route for America. Evans Gordon, as a "restrictionist", was heavily and actively involved in the passing of the Aliens Act 1905, which sought to limit the number of people allowed to enter Britain even temporarily. He held Stepney from 1900 to 1907.
Early life William Eden Evans Gordon was born in Chatham, Kent, the youngest son of Major-General Charles Spalding Evans Gordon (19 September 1813 – 18 January 1901) and his first wife, Catherine Rose (23 July 1815 – 1858), daughter of Rev. Dr. Alexander Rose, D.D., a Presbyterian minister of Inverness. William was the youngest of seven children. See also Family life below.
His mother died in 1858, soon after he was born.He may possibly have lived in Dublin, where his father was Town Major from 1864, and where his father re-married in 1866. He was educated at Cheltenham College and entered in October 1870, at the same time as his older brother Charles [Jr.]),Cheltenham College Register 1841–1889, p. 277, pdf p. 319 and at the Royal Military College, where he was an unattached Sub-Lieutenant on 15 July 1876.Hart, H. G (ed.) The New Annual Army List, Militia List, and Indian Civil Service List, 1877, p. 112. London: John Murray. NB His name here is hyphenated.. For the militarily curious: among other unattached sub-lieutenants at Sandhurst that year were: J.B. De la Poer Beresford, 8th Marquess of Waterford; Walter Kitchener; Aldred Lumley, 10th Earl of Scarbrough; Horace G. Proctor-Beauchamp, 6th Baronet; Frederick W.R. Ricketts, 5th Baronet; (later General) Horace Smith-Dorrien; Richard Garnons Williams; Sir Herbert Williams-Wynn, 7th Baronet; H.C. Wylly, et al.
Political career in India
Evans-Gordon was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the 67th Foot on 15 January 1877. He transferred on 3 July to the Madras Staff Corps of the Indian Army, attached to the 41st Madras Native Infantry in 1880 as Wing Officer and Quartermaster.The British Raj, an essentially-military operation, needed a sizable administrative staff. The Madras Staff Corps was a branch of the Indian Staff Corps, itself a department of the Foreign Department of the Indian Government.The New Annual Army List, Militia List, and Indian Civil Service List, 1880. London: John Murray, p. 502 From November 1881 to December 1883 he was extra ADC to the Governor of Madras, M. E. Grant Duff, serving as Wing Officer and Quartermaster in 1883 with the 8th Madras Native Infantry.The New Annual Army List, Militia List, and Indian Civil Service List, 1883. London: John Murray, p. 497 (pdf p. 481). In 1884, Evans Gordon served under the Foreign Department attached to 1st Regt. Central India Horse (Mayne's Horse) in Guna.The regiment's CO was the ex officio British Political Officer for a number of small states previously administered by Gwalior Residency.
During the joint Russo-British Afghan Boundary Commission 1885–1887See, for example, and . under Colonel Joseph West Ridgeway, he was busy working as Boundary Settlement Officer and Assistant in charge of Banswara State and Pratapgarh. As an Attaché of the Indian Foreign Department, he worked on translating documents into French and German, apparently for the uniformed but "unofficial" military observers from those countries. He had charge of the Frontier Branch of the Foreign Department and collated the Boundary Commission's documentation.Photographs taken 1885-7 during the desert journeys of the Commission.
From 1884 to 1888, he was Assistant Secretary during the greater part of the Viceroy Lord Dufferin's tenure by accompanying the Viceroy on his tours and translating at his interviews with Indian princely rulers. In 1885, Evans-Gordon was back with the 8th Madras Regiment in Saugor as Officiating 3rd Class Political Assistant,The New Annual Army List, Militia List, and Indian Civil Service List, 1885. London: John Murray, p. 497 (pdf p. 501). and the following year, he was attached to the Foreign Department of the Indian Government.The New Annual Army List, Militia List, and Indian Civil Service List, 1886. London: John Murray, p. 497 (pdf p. 505)
In September 1886, he accompanied the Foreign Secretary of the Indian Government (Sir Mortimer Durand) up the military road being built through the Khyber Pass by Colonel Robert Warburton to the new fort at Landi Kotal. See also photograph of Landi Kotal, p. 184. The Durand Line remains the international boundary between Afghanistan and modern-day Pakistan.
On 15 July 1887, Evans-Gordon was promoted to Captain in the Indian Staff Corps, as Assistant Secretary at the Foreign Department from 1888 to 1892. As political officer in 1888, he was prominently connected with negotiations for the surrender of Ghazi Ayub Khan, who eight years earlier had defeated a British army at the Battle of Maiwand during the Second Anglo-Afghan War and had laid siege to Khandahar. He sought refuge in Iran, where he entered into negotiations with Sir Mortimer Durand, now ambassador at Teheran. Evans-Gordon took charge of him on his arrival in India and escorted him and his entourage from Karachi to Rawalpindi.
He was appointed Joint-Commissioner in Ladakh in 1889 (where he was described as "an energetic and able officer"),"The present Joint-Commissioner in Ladakh is Captain Evans Gordon, an energetic and able officer, as are most of those appointed by the Indian Government to this unsettled and peculiarly situated State. He had not yet arrived at Leh, as his presence had been required at Srinagar; so we were unfortunate in not meeting him here". and Assistant Resident in the recently annexed Jammu and Kashmir in November 1890, ruled by Maharaja Pratap Singh. During his Indian furloughs, he travelled in many parts of the East and penetrated some distance into Tibet in 1891. He accomplished a remarkable ride on horseback from Leh to Srinagar, 250 miles, in 33 hours; crossed three passes of the Himalayas at around 13,500 feet.; covered the distance, 152 miles, in 37 hours.The Times, 11 November 1891, cited in
He was a political officer in attendance on the Maharaja of Baroda, Sayajirao Gaekwad III,The barely audible pronunciation of the final "d" in "Gaekwad" was lost on the tone-deaf Britishers, who called the rulers of Baroda the "Gaekwar". when he travelled to Europe in 1894. In March 1895, he was appointed Officiating Political Resident in Jhalawar State (a subdivision of the Rajputana Agency during the British Raj) Evans-Gordon was promoted Major on 15 July 1896.
In 1896, he was also connected with the deposition of the Maharaja of Jhalawar, Rana Zalim Singh, for which he was criticised in Parliament, but the Secretary of State asserted that the Political Agent had acted with "discretion and tolerance".Commons Sitting, 21 July 1896 HC Deb 21 July 1896 vol 43 cc277-92
He retired on pension on 13 May 1897, and on 17 February 1900, he was appointed a Major in the Reserve of Officers. he was awarded the Legion of Honour, Reserve of Offs., 4th Class, on 17 February 1900.
The Times of India Illustrated Weekly of 5 September 1906 reported that in Kashmir, at Ladakh and in attendance on the Gaekwar in Europe, he "won the trust and esteem of all the chiefs and magistrates with whom he was brought into relation".Hansard – Parliamentary Debates, vol. 43, 277–92.
Indian attitudes to Jews
Unlike in many other parts of the world, Jews have historically lived in India without any instances of anti-Semitism from the local majority populace, the Hindus, but Jews were persecuted by the Portuguese during their control of Goa."When the Portuguese arrived in 1498, they brought a spirit of intolerance utterly alien to India. They soon established an Office of Inquisition at Goa, and at their hands Indian Jews experienced the only instance of antisemitism ever to occur in Indian soil."
Political career in Britain Background
The Stepney constituency, one of the poorest districts of London, saw in a rise in immigration during the late 19th century and early 20th century, partially as a result of the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire As far back as 1889, a House of Commons Committee had concluded that there had been an increase in pauperism in the East End of London by the crowding out of English labour from foreign immigrants.
In July 1894, Lord Rosebery proposed a Bill in the House of Lords designed to reform the current legislation on aliens although it was withdrawn in August 1894 after its second reading. Restrictionism came to be a notable canvassing topic in the 1892 and 1895 general elections, and the recently succeeded Earl of Hardwicke proposed a similar Aliens Bill in 1898. That year, a year after Evans-Gordon had left the Army, a by-election was held in Stepney after the sudden death of the Tory MP Frederick W. Isaacson."Other London Conservatives were self-made entrepreneurs, such as the Stepney MP F. W. Isaaacson (Con.), who had made his fortune in the silk and coal trades [...] the cost and all-consuming demands of metropolitan representation could be prohibitive to all but the wealthiest candidates". The Newington West Liberal MP noted "the great difficulty in obtaining suitable candidates for London constituencies, owing to the perpetual tax upon their time and pockets".. Evans-Gordon stood as the Conservative candidate but lost to the Liberal journalist William Charles Steadman by 20 votes.
MP for Stepney Evans-Gordon was elected as MP for Stepney on an anti-alien platform in the 1900 general election and held the seat until 1907.Dod's peerage, baronetage and knightage of Great Britain and Ireland for 1908 Along with the somewhat older Howard Vincent, he was among the first MPs to arouse public opposition to immigration. Although the growing sense of anti-alien feeling found expression in certain localised quarters of the franchised electorate,Some women first got the vote in 1918, and only in 1928 were all females over 21 enfranchised. the primary issues in the 1900 poll were a desire to end the Second Boer War (hence the nickname (khaki election) and the vexed question of home rule for Ireland.Politics in 1901. 1901 Census. National Archives. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
After his election, Evans-Gordon became the brains and driving force behind the British Brothers' League (BBL), an anti-alien pressure group formed in Stepney in May 1901, but he took care to front the League with one William Stanley Shaw, an unimportant City clerk who was its first president.The BBL can be viewed as part of a wider effort of certain elements in the Conservative Party to build a base of popular support in the East End and thus drive a wedge between Liberal and labour. Howard Vincent (MP for Sheffield Central since 1885) and several East End Conservative MPs (Murray Guthrie, Spencer Charrington and Thomas Dewar) became members of the League.