THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
Gordon, Charles ___ 1833-1885 ___ British
___ soldier
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Gordon was born in Woolwich, the
son of a Royal Artillery officer, and entered the Royal Military Academy
as a gentleman cadet when only 15. He had intended to follow his father
into the artillery, but eventually graduated in 1852 as a second lieutenant
in the Corp of Royal Engineers. After working on Pembroke Dock in Wales
he sought, and achieved, a posting to Crimea. There he built huts for the
troops in winter, and helped map the Russian trenches. He was present at
the siege of Sevastopol, and was decorated for bravery by the French. In
1860, he volunteered for the 'Arrow' war against the Chinese, and, in 1862,
his corps of engineers was assigned to strengthen the European trading centre
of Shanghai, which was threatened by the insurgents of the Taiping Rebellion.
For the best part of two years, he also commanded a large peasant force
which helped defend the city. In 1865, he returned to England a hero, and
was nicknamed 'Chinese Gordon'. In 1873 he was appointed governor of the
province of Equatoria in the Sudan, and subsequently governor-general. During
his time in Africa, he mapped the upper Nile and established a line of stations
along the river as far south as present day Uganda; and he also crushed
rebellions and helped suppress the slave trade. Ill health forced him back
to England in 1880, but he returned to Sudan in 1884 to evacuate Egyptian
forces from Khartoum, threatened by Sudanese rebels. However, the rebels
broke into the sieged city and Gordon was killed. Now he was nicknamed 'Gordon
of Khartoum', and his death caused a public outcry in England and strong
criticism of the way Prime Minister Gladstone had handled the Sudan situation.
One biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1863 1884 ___ military social Egypt
China
WEB TEXT LINKS
some
mention
one
very short quote
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Royal Engineers
Museum - possibly
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Journals of General Gordon at Khartoum
General Gordon's Private Diary of His Exploits in China
May 06
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |