Lord George Gordon

Lord George Gordon ( born December 25, 1751 London, † November 1, 1793 in London) was a British politician. He was the leader of the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots. The Australian cultural historian Iain McCalman wrote about him, with him had "Britain [ ... ] apparently spawned the first man of modern terror. "

Lord George Gordon, third son of Cosmo Gordon, 3rd Duke of Gordon served initially in the Navy, but left during the American Freedom War the naval service in 1774 and Member of Parliament for Ludgershall spots.

As greater freedoms were granted by the Act of 1778 the Catholics, he founded a Protestant Association and brought on 2 June 1780 the St George Place a general meeting, another project on which to 100,000 people took part. A petition to repeal the Act was designed, and with it drew Gordon at the top of a heated popular heap before the Houses of Parliament.

He indicated to Parliament that he would guarantee the peace, if you will arrange one days to negotiate on the subject. This was scheduled for June 6. As a result of but riots, which broke out on 4th June and were suppressed only on 8 June from the government troops after Catholic churches, houses of Catholics, prisons and other buildings on fire, freed many prisoners and attacked the bank and the customs office were, Gordon was arrested and charged with treason.

However, he was acquitted on defense in 1781 Lord Thomas Erskine, because it was not illegal to hand over petitions in bulk, and could not be proved that he had encouraged the people to excesses. From the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1786 excommunicated for invective, he went to France, where he was sentenced in 1788 because of a pamphlet against the Queen to five years in prison. He escaped this punishment by fleeing to Holland and to have become Jew here. He was later arrested at Birmingham and taken to Newgate (at that time the oldest prison in London), where he died on November 1, 1793.