Death
On 28 January 1793, Lord George Gordon's sentence expired and he had to appear to give claim to his future good behaviour. When appearing in court he was ordered to remove his hat, which he refused to do. The hat was then taken from him by force, but he covered his head with a night cap and bound it with a handkerchief. He defended his behaviour concerning his kippah by quoting the Hebrew Bible "in support of the propriety of the creature having his head covered in reverence to the Creator." Before the court, he read a written statement in which he claimed that "he had been imprisoned for five years among murderers, thieves, etc., and that all the consolation he had arose from his trust in God."
Since he had brought as guarantors two Jews, whom the court would not accept as witnesses, Gordon was again remanded to his prison cell. Although his brothers, the 4th Duke of Gordon and Lord William (the future Vice-Admiral), and his sister, Lady Westmorland, offered to cover his bail, Gordon refused their help, saying that to "sue for pardon was a confession of guilt."
In October of the same year, Gordon caught the typhoid fever that had been raging in Newgate throughout 1793. Christopher Hibbert, another biographer, writes that scores of prisoners waited outside his door for news about his health; friends, regardless of the risk of infection, stood whispering in the room and praying for his recovery - but George Yisrael bar Avraham Gordon died on 1 November 1793, 26 Mar-Cheshvan 5554, at the age of 42.
Gordon's life story can be found in Lord George Gordon, by Yirmeyahu Bindman, 1992, ISBN 1-56062-056-0, LOC 90-86061, which has a 15 item Bibliography and a brief Glossary of Jewish religious terms used in the 203+ page book.
A serious defence is undertaken in The Life of Lord George Gordon, with a Philosophical Review of his Political Conduct, by Robert Watson, M.D. (London, 1795). The best accounts of Lord George Gordon are to be found in the Annual Registers from 1780 to the year of his death.
Read more about this topic: Lord George Gordon
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