ABSTRACT
William Gordon is reputed to have been the son of Cosmo George, the Third Duke of Gordon, by an early marriage to a French lady in Tours. The legend is that the marriage was not recognised in Scotland, the mother died young of a ‘broken heart’ and William did not succeed to the Dukedom. William Gordon left his teaching post at Fochabers in 1753, just after the death of the Third Duke, to take up an appointment as writing and mathematical master at the High School, Stirling. On 17 September 1782 William Gordon was imprisoned in Glasgow’s Tolbooth for non payment of outstanding debts. The statement of losses are mostly concerned with the bill trade but he may earlier have been involved in the sugar trade since in 1764 he (together with three others) had advertised in the Glasgow Journal for a carpenter and a piper for the West Indies.
