Family and Education

b. 19 May 1749,1 1st s. of Alexander Cumming of Rosehill and Penrose, Cornw., and bro. of George Cumming*. m. 9 Sept. 1773, Helen. da. of Sir Ludovick Grant, 7th Bt., of Castle Grant, Elgin, 7s. 9da. suc. fa. 1761;2 gt.-uncle George Cumming to Altyre 1775;3 cos. Sir William Gordon, 6th Bt., to Gordonstown 1795 and took additional name of Gordon;4 cr. Bt. 21 May 1804.

Offices Held

Ensign 13 Ft. 1768-74.

Lt.-col. 1st (Strathspey) fencibles 1793-9.

Biography

Cumming Gordon’s father, a soldier, was shipwrecked off Penzance when returning from foreign service, married a local heiress and settled in Cornwall. Cumming Gordon served for six years in the army and was at Leghorn in 1771. In 1775 he succeeded to the family’s estates in Scotland and took up residence there. He became one of the leading spirits of the Moray Association of resident proprietors formed to resist Lord Fife’s hegemony in Elginshire, and he unsuccessfully contested the county in 1784. In 1790, the seat went to his nephew Lewis Alexander Grant, as part of the north-eastern electoral settlement negotiated by Henry Dundas. Grant suffered a mental breakdown in 1792 and on 12 Feb. Cumming Gordon told James Grant that he would be interested in the seat in the event of a vacancy, in order to improve the chances of procuring a passage to India for his son. In 1794, with the approval of his brother-in-law Sir James Grant, he made his bid, as a supporter of government; but Dundas, annoyed by his precipitancy and fearing disruptive consequences throughout the area, refused his support and backed another candidate. Cumming Gordon gave way shortly before the election of 1796, expressing a hope that Dundas would regard his pretensions more favourably on a future occasion.5

In 1795 he was served heir to his kinsman Sir William Gordon of Gordonstown. His right to the property was challenged in the courts, but it was confirmed in 1798. He again contemplated standing for Elginshire in 1802, but left the sitting Member unmolested at the request of Robert Dundas of Arniston. Having ‘taken the crotchet of being in at this time’,6 he contested Inverness Burghs, with the countenance of the Dundases, against Sir Hector Munro, who had controlled and represented the constituency for 34 years. He stood on the combined interests of himself and the Grants in the burghs of Forres and Nairn, was elected delegate for the latter and returned himself with its casting vote. He survived Munro’s subsequent petition.

Immediately after his return he corresponded with Robert and Henry Dundas about a scheme to transfer him eventually to the county and he placed himself entirely at their disposal in the matter.7 Charles Innes reckoned him ‘independent’ of Dundas, but the Dundases duly numbered him among their ‘partisans’. No vote or speech is recorded in his name during his brief tenure of the seat, which he handed over to his younger brother in 1803.

Cumming Gordon, who received a baronetcy from Pitt in 1804, died 10 Feb. 1806.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: David R. Fisher

Notes

• 1. M. E. Cumming Bruce, Fam. Recs. of Bruces and Cumyns, 468.
• 2. Gent. Mag. (1761), 603.
• 3. Cumming Bruce, 474.
• 4. Decennial Indexes to Services of Heirs in Scotland, 1790-99, p. 12.
• 5. Cumming Bruce, 466-74; Macpherson Grant mss 283 (NRA[S] 771); SRO GD51/1/198/17/1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 11.
• 6. NLS mss 1053, f. 102.
• 7. Ibid. ff. 98-102.