John Gordon of Bristol

John Gordon, formerly collector of customs and Sheriff of Bristol 1789, son of Robert Gordon of Auchendolly, who was a West India merchant and Mayor of Bristol 1773. He was encouraged to continue his father Robert's mercantile partnership with his brother William under their father's will of 1775, but it is not clear whether he did so.

1. Married Catherine Hering (q.v., under Catherine Gordon), daughter of Julines Hering, in 1787.  Will of John Gordon late Collector of HM Customs of Bristol, Gloucestershire proved 05/02/1840. In the will [made 17/03/1836] he left the Campbelton estate in Jamaica and the right to the service of the apprentices on the estate to his wife Catherine for life and then to their five sons George, William, Henry, James, and Oliver Hering Gordon.

2. John and Catherine Gordon's daughter Catherine married [Sir] William Miles, 1st bart., son of Philip John Miles.

3. John's sister-in-law Mary Helen Hering married Henry Middleton (1770-1846), one of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence.

4. John Gordon, 'slave merchant', bought Cleve Hill House in 1790 and resold it in 1804 to Stephen Cave. (One of the sons of John and Catherine Gordon was Oliver Hering Gordon, born 8 July 1799 at Cleve Hill.)

1. Vere Langford Oliver, Caribbeana being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies (6 vols., London, Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, 1910-1919), Vol II, pp. 11-14, 'Herring of Jamaica'; PROB 11/1922.

2. http://www.inglis.uk.com/11%20the%20american%20branch.htm [accessed 28/03/2011].

3. See the Hering Family Papers, 1674-1960, http://www.southcarolinahistoricalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Hering-Family-papers-1211.00.pdf [accessed 12/03/2013].

4. Madge Dresser, Slavery obscured p. 115; Bristol Church of England Parish Registers: Ancestry. Thanks to Richard Savory for the reference.

We are grateful to Madeleine Mitchell for her assistance in compiling this entry.