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rarity among his relatives, something of an intellectual and a scientist. Lifelong sources of support among his British friends were Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, whose attempt to revive the powers of convocation within the church was canvassed by Gordon as secretary to the prime minister, though with limited success, and Roundell Palmer, first earl of Selborne, a Gladstonian, a lawyer of great distinction, and twice lord chancellor. There were others, more especially among his female relatives and the daughters and wives of his political friends, with whom he kept up a regular correspondence. Eventually, through his own marriage in 1865 he added his father-in-law, Sir John George Shaw-Lefevre, a prominent lawyer and a civil servant with experience as under-secretary in the colonial office, the board of trade, and other public appointments.
These personal and political connections served to set him on a career in colonial service, not by advancing up an administrative ladder, but directly through selection for a governorship by the secretary of state for colonies, the duke of Newcastle, who had been in a similar post for war and colonies under Aberdeen. 18Gordon's technique involved lobbying through other well-placed officials—such as the duke of Argyll—to support his application and using the services of his close confidant, Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. At the time of his first overtures at the end of 1859, his hopes were high for a post and he was reading “everything about Guiana.” There is no indication that Gordon, prior to his short tour in the Ionian Islands, had much political or historical understanding of either the dynamics of colonies of European settlement with responsible government or the economic backwardness and social plurality of crown colonies, especially those recently freed from the burden of slavery.
It was a pattern to be repeated many times in Gordon's career. He was a persistent lobbyist on his own behalf with a quite breathtaking confidence in his own ability to manage the politics and administration of territories and societies outside his field of experience. Moreover, the imperial world he engaged to serve in was changing significantly as his colonial career began. The colonial office as an administrative arm of government and parliament in mid-century was preoccupied with the consequences of colonial reform leading to self-government during the