Gordon, George William Hamilton | Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada

GORDON, George William Hamilton (1854-1906), a partner with the talented and prolific Montreal architect Sir Andrew T. Taylor (see list of works under Taylor & Gordon). Born in Stanmore, near Harrow, Engl. he was educated there and in February 1874 he became a pupil of Sir Alfred Waterhouse, a leading Victorian architect in England. Gordon trained under him for four years, then became an assistant to Waterhouse from 1878 until September 1882. Both he and Taylor formed a new partnership in London in late 1882, and when Taylor emigrated to Montreal in 1884, it was decided that Gordon would remain in London to handle the British branch of the business, and Taylor would operate the Canadian branch from a new office in Montreal. Dozens of significant Canadian commissions followed over the next twenty years, all of them credited in source material to 'Taylor & Gordon', yet there is no evidence that Gordon ever resided in Canada, and new information from the RIBA in London suggests that Gordon had all but retired from the partnership in 1888 in order to practise alone under his own name from offices in Moorgate Chambers, London. He was elected an Associate of the RIBA in 1886, and nominated as a Fellow in 1906. In May 1904 Gordon moved to South Africa and became Director of Public Works in the Orange River Colony. He died at Bloemfontein, South Africa in December 1906 from the effects of severe dysentery (obit. Building News [London], xcii, 11 Jan. 1907, 64; R.I.B.A. Journal, xiv, 13 April 1907, 416; R.I.B.A., Directory of British Architects 1834-1900, 1993, 361; inf. Johanna Walker, Pretoria, South Africa)