Gordon, George Hamilton, 4th Earl of Aberdeen (1784 -1860)

George Gordon was the eldest son of George Gordon, Lord Haddo, and Charlotte, youngest daughter of William Baird, of Newbyth. He was educated at Harrow School, succeeded his grandfather as 4th Earl of Aberdeen, 13 August 1801, matriculated as a nobleman at St John's College, Cambridge, 30 June 1804, and took his M.A. the same year. He married firstly, 28 July 1805, Catherine Elizabeth, eldest surviving daughter of John James Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn. They had a son who died in infancy, and three daughters who died unmarried during the lifetime of their father. She died 29 February 1812, and his lordship married secondly, 8 July 1815, Harriet, daughter of John Douglas, and widow of James Viscount Hamilton. In 1813 Lord Aberdeen was Ambassador Extraordinary to Vienna. In 1828 he accepted the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the administration of the Duke of Wellington, and in June became Foreign Secretary, resigning with the rest of the government in 1830. He was Secretary for War and the Colonies under Peel in 1834, in 1841 he was again Foreign Secretary under Peel, and was Prime Minister from 1852 to 1855. A Knight of the Garter (1855) and of the Thistle (1808), a Fellow of the Royal Society, and of the Society of Antiquaries, he was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Viscount Gordon of Aberdeen 1 June 1814, and assumed the additional surname of Hamilton, before that of Gordon, by royal licence 13 November 1818.