page_title: Charles George Gordon
section_title: Charity work
hierarchical_section_title: Charles George Gordon / Gravesend years / Charity work
caption_attribution_description: English: Gordon Gardens, Gravesend A part of the Gravesend Riverside Leisure Area.
context_page_description: Major-General Charles George Gordon CB, also known as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum, was a British Army officer and administrator. He saw action in the Crimean War as an officer in the British Army. 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. In the early 1860s, Gordon and his men were instrumental in putting down the Taiping Rebellion, regularly defeating much larger forces. For these accomplishments, he was given the nickname "Chinese Gordon" and honours from both the Emperor of China and the British.
  He entered the service of the Khedive of Egypt in 1873 and later became the Governor-General of the Sudan, where he did much to suppress revolts and the local slave trade. Exhausted, he resigned and returned to Europe in 1880.
  A serious revolt then broke out in the Sudan, led by a Muslim religious leader and self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. In early 1884 Gordon was sent to Khartoum with instructions to secure the evacuation of loyal soldiers and civilians and to depart with them.
context_section_description: Gordon returned to Britain and commanded the Royal Engineers' efforts around Gravesend, Kent, to erect forts for the defence of the River Thames. After he arrived in Britain, Gordon announced to the press that he "did not want to board the tram of the world" and asked to be left alone. Following the death of his father he undertook extensive social work in the town including teaching at the local Ragged school. Before 1870, there was no universal school system in Britain, and the Ragged Schools were a network of privately funded schools that gave a free education to children whose parents were too poor to afford the school fees.
  The council subsequently acquired the gardens of his official residence, Fort House (now a museum), for the town. Gordon's father was against his son working in Chinese service, an estrangement that had not been settled at the time of his death, and Gordon felt immense guilt that his father had died before they were reconciled. Gordon disapproved of the forts he was building at the mouth of Thames to guard against a possible French invasion, regarding them as expensive and useless.
  When the Duke of Cambridge, the Army's commander, visited one of the forts under construction and praised Gordon for his work, he received the reply: "I had nothing to do with it, sir; it was built regardless of my opinion, and, in fact, I entirely disapprove of its arrangement and position". Besides building forts, Gordon was engulfed in charity and religious fervour during this time. His favourite books were The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, Christ Mystical by Joseph Hall and the poem The Dream of Gerontius by John Henry Newman. Gordon's closest friends were a couple, Frederick and Octavia Freese, whose son Edward become Gordon's surrogate son.
  During his time at Gravesend, Gordon was much involved in charity work, trying to ensure that homeless boys he found begging on the street did not go hungry while attempting to find them homes and jobs. Many of the "scuttlers" as Gordon fondly called the homeless boys were taken in by him to live at his home, the Fort House. Outside of the Fort House were graffito written on the wall by one of the evidently less educated boys that read: "God Bless the Kernel". Another "scuttler" later recalled: "He made me feel, first of all, the meaning of the phrase, the Goodness of God. Goodness become to me, through Gordon, the most desirable of ideas...We were under the spell of Gordon's personality. We lived in the magic of his mystery-enchanted".
  Every year, Gordon gave away about 90% of his annual income of £3,000 (equivalent to £333,000 in 2019) to charity. "Chinese Gordon" did not enjoy his celebrity status and though Gordon was extremely charismatic, he only kept a limited circle of friends and found dealing with strangers difficult. A colleague recalled that Gordon's time at Gravesend was the "most peaceful and happy of his life", but Gordon was often bored, and constantly asked the War Office for an assignment to somewhere dangerous. Gordon often spoke nostalgically of his service in China, and wished he could return to that country.
caption: Gordon Gardens, Gravesend.
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