Postwar Career
Gordon was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1815 for his activities in the American war. He was lucky after the cessation of hostilities against the USA and Napoleon to continue for a while in seagoing commands, as captain of the frigate HMS Madagascar (1811) in 1815–1816 and then of the frigate Meander in the latter year. In 1819 he rejoined his old command, HMS Active, and was again her captain until 1821. After this he held no further seagoing command. He was appointed Superintendent of the Naval Hospital at Plymouth in 1828, and in 1832 moved on to become Superintendent of Chatham Dockyard. He attained the rank of Rear Admiral in 1837, and in 1840 became Lieutenant-Governor of the Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich; he would remain associated with the running of that institution and the care of old seamen until his death. He became a Vice-Admiral in 1848 and full Admiral in 1853, in which year he succeeded to Sir Robert Stopford as Governor of the Greenwich Hospital. On 30 January 1868, aged 86, he attained the rank of Admiral of the Fleet. He died at Greenwich just under a year later and was buried in the Hospital grounds. An obituary in Macmillan’s Magazine hailed him as "The Last of Nelson’s Captains".
Read more about this topic: James Gordon (Royal Navy Officer)
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