George John Robert Gordon

On a visit to England in 1853, after his time in Sweden, Gordon presented a copy of Piae Cantiones, a collection of mediaeval songs published in Finland in 1582, to the Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter John Mason Neale. The songs were translated and published by Neale, in collaboration with Thomas Helmore, and include now well-known Christmas carols such as In dulci jubilo and Good King Wenceslas.

Gordon married Rosa Justina Young (1817−1891) in Rio de Janeiro in 1843 and had three children:

• Cosmo Frederick Maitland Gordon (1843−1884), a naval officer
• Alicia Albinia Georgiana Gordon (1845–1935), who married the Austrian army officer Count August von Dillen-Spiering
• Arthur John Lewis Gordon (1847–1910), a diplomat,^[2] who married his cousin Caroline Augusta Hamilton Gordon, daughter of Colonel Sir Alexander Hamilton Gordon

In the 1860s, Gordon began an affair with Emilie von Beulwitz (1841−1909).^[3] After he declared himself a bachelor and converted to Catholicism, they married in 1871,^[4][5] and were the parents of:^[6]

• Georgina Gordon (1866−1958)
• Robert Gordon (b. 1869)
• Richard Wolf Gordon (b. 1870)
• Louise Ignace Therese Julie Gordon (b. 1872)

After inheriting his father's estate at Ellon Castle in 1873, Gordon lived in Scotland before moving to the continent, residing first in Bruges in Belgium before settling permanently in Würzburg in Germany. In 1892, after his first wife's death, Gordon and his second wife were married in a civil ceremony in Maastricht in the Netherlands.^[3]

Gordon died in Würzburg in 1902, at the age of 90.