Robert Gordon of Straloch

Robert Gordon of Straloch was a Scottish cartographer, (September 14, 1580 - August 18, 1661).

Early years

The younger son of Sir John Gordon of Pitlurg, Knt., (d. 1600) by his spouse Isabel, daughter of William Forbes, 7th Lord Forbes, Robert Gordon was educated at the Marischal College, University of Aberdeen - of which he was the first graduate - and afterwards at the University of Paris. He is noted as a poet, mathematician, antiquary, and geographer.

Laird

Sometime after 1608 he acquired the estate of Straloch, north of Aberdeen. Upon the decease of his elder brother John Gordon without issue in 1619, Robert inherited his estate of Pitlurg. Robert Gordon was therefore a man of both learning and substance.

Works

In 1641, Charles I wrote an oft-quoted letter, in which he entreated Gordon 'to reveis the saidis cairtiss', to complete the publication of an atlas of Scotland, which had been projected by Timothy Pont. To this work Gordon zealously devoted himself, and in such high estimation were his labours held, that by two Acts of the Scottish Parliament he was exempted from any form of military service, while the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland published a request to the clergy, to afford him every assistance in their power. The undertaking was completed in 1648 and soon afterwards published by the Blaeus of Amsterdam, under the title of Theatrum Scotiae. A second edition was published in 1655 and a third in 1662. This atlas was said to be the first delineation of Scotland made from actual survey and measurement, and even today its accuracy is considered remarkable.

Although best known for this contribution to Willem Blaeu's Great Atlas of Scotland, it represents only a small part of the scholastic pursuits which his position permitted him to indulge.

Gordon made many other maps, entirely of his own construction, and revised and materially improved many others, adding geographical descriptions of much value, and prefixing an introduction in Blaeu, in which a comprehensive view is given of the constitution and antiquities of the country. These dissertations were one of the first attempts to settle the ancient history of Scotland on the basis on which it is perhaps universally recognised to rest.

He contributed other essays, many of which are still in manuscript form, some mentioned with much approbation by Bishop Nicolson in his Scottish Historical Library; the principal of which is a latin Mss History of the Family of Gordon from the earliest period to the year 1595, bearing the latin title: Origo et Progressus Familiae illustrissimae Gordoniorum in Scotia.

He also wrote a preface to Archbishop Spottiswoode's History of the Church of Scotland, and translated into latin the controversy between John Knox and Wolfram, sub-prior of St. Andrews. A critical letter of his on Scottish historians, which he addressed to the antiquarian David Buchanan, is inserted in Leyland's Collectanea; some of his poems have been printed in Bishop Forbes' Funerales (Aberdeen, 1635).

Marriage and death

Robert Gordon married in 1608, Catherine, daughter of Alexander Irvine of Lenturk, by whom he had nine sons and six daughters.

He died in 1661, and was interred in the family burial place at New Machar on September 6. A portrait of him, by Jameson, the Scottish Van Dyke, hangs in the great hall of Marischal College.

Shortly after his death he was described as 'one of the most worthy and learned Gentlemen of our Nation'. He was the grandfather of another Robert Gordon, the founder of Robert Gordon University.

References

• Burke, John, History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, vol.iv, London, 1838, p.47-8.
• Anderson, William, The Scottish Nation, Edinburgh, 1867, vol.v, p.332.