ENGAGEMENT AND MARRIAGE
A TIME LINE
1857 June 17 Lindsay’s father dies. Captain Adam Durnford Gordon.(Grave Stone) Meets Rev. Tenison Woods
1858 Mar. Receives letter dated Dec 12 1857 from his mother Harriet Gordon.
1858 Oct 19 25th Birthday
1859 Apr 29 Lindsay’s mother Harriet Elizabeth. Gordon dies. (Grave Stone)
1859 Aug. 6 Wreck of the Admella N/E of Port MacDonnell basis for ‘From the Wreck’ 9 years later.
Gordon rode from the wreck to Mount Gambier to raise the alarm.
1860 Feb 3 Came second at Inverness races, Mosquito Plains Penola Hurdle on Robertson’s ‘Gaylad’.
1860 Mar 19 Mount Gambier Autumn Races. First on ‘Waverley’ in hurdle race.
1861 Feb 1 Unplaced at Penola Hurdle on J.Locke’s ‘Cigar’.
1861 Apr 26 Border Watch Newspaper opened in Mount Gambier, Published ‘The Feud’ and ‘Ars Longa
1861 Moved to Mt. Gambier from the Robe area.
1861 Purchased land in Mt Gambier.
1861 June 20 Mount Gambier Storekeeper’s purse in 2nd race Gordon came second on own ‘Eagle’ Hurdle race. 6 leaps over 4’6″ fences. (Won by default of winner)
1861 July 10 Property Dingley Dell granted to Peter Dowding Prankerd. (J.K. Moir Border Watch (Mount Gambier,Thursday 2 December 1937,
page 1)
1861 Oct 1s MacDonnell Bay Steeple. Won on Blakesley’s ‘Vanguard’
1861 Oct/Nov Lindsay receives his share of his mother’s will about £7000.
1861 Dec 5 Second at Hamilton Steeple race on Blakesley’s ‘Vanguard’.
1861 Dec 26 Mount Gambier. Gordon was successful in the hurdle race. First on .Sandlark.’
1862 Dingley Dell Cottage built in 1862 by local farmer George Randall.
1862 Jan 15 A Win at The Penola Steeple SA on his own ‘Vanguard ‘
1862 Feb 28 A win at the Guichen Bay Hurdle on ‘Ivanhoe’ Gordon could have met his future wife, Maggie Park there.
1862 Mar 1 Unplaced in Steward’s purse(SA) on ‘Vanguard’
1862 Mar 22 Unplaced Branxholme Hurdle (Vic) on ‘Ivanhoe’.
1862 (During) Alexander (Sandy Mitchell) ,burly Scot with one eye oversaw the construction of the Mount Gambier Hotel
1862 May 20 Came third at Great Western Steeple- Coleraine (Vic) on Vanguard
1862 May 21 Unplaced Casterton (Vic) Hurdle on Ivanhoe
1862 Sep 26 A win at the Mount Gambier Steeple Chase on ‘Ivanhoe’.
1862 Sep 27 Unplaced in Mount Gambier Handicap on ‘Ivanhoe’.
1862 Sept. Had a fall from a race-horse at or near Robe and met his future wife Maggie Park.
1862 Oct. 20 Gordon married Maggie Park in Mount Gambier.
Built a house at Yahl Paddock in the Mt Gambier- Blue Lake area.
Reproducing a Biography by Eileen Kaye first published in The Australasian Reproducing a biography by Eileen Kaye first published in The Australasian Newspaper in serial form in 1933.
This series of articles was recovered from The Australasian newspaper by Travis M. Sellers.
Edited by John W. Adams, with permission kindly given by The State Library of Victoria.
Gordon made the acquaintance of Margaret Park. She was the attractive little niece of the proprietor of the Caledonian Hotel, Robe, where Gordon sometimes stayed when he visited Guichen Bay (Robe). They became acquainted at one of the little race meetings where he was riding and she an interested spectator. She was 17 years old and looked even younger, being a very small, lightly built girl. She had blue eyes, brown ringlets, and a fresh and open face. Gordon noted that she was an excellent horsewoman, that she was thrifty and cheerful and bright, and a good little house-keeper. So tradition tells an attractive story of a rather unconventional, but quite honourable, wooing after the nursing of Gordon through an illness, but this is apparently inconsistent with fact. Gordon was a man of means and a good ‘match.’
Publocation – Link to Caledonian Inn
A more refined version is given by Margaret Park’s second husband who says that Margaret was under the employ at McQueen’s Criterion Hotel.
Gordon had his horses quartered at the Robe Hotel and became so infatuated with Margaret that he removed so that he could be close to his lady love.
1867 May 3 – Maggie gave birth to a daughter Annie Lindsay Gordon after Gordon brought her back to Robe from Yallum Park. “Church Records.” Guest of the Governor of the Robe Gaol (Ex Trooper Bradshaw Young who was with Gordon at Wreck of Admella in 1859)
Maggie and her sister Polly took the coastal boat from Robe to Port MacDonnell, where Gordon met them with side-saddle horses. They rode together for 20 miles into Mount Gambier, where Maggie and Polly stayed with the Bradshaw Youngs. From their house she and Gordon were married on October 20, 1862, by the Presbyterian minister, Rev. James Don. The Church is situated at 26 Elizabeth Street Mount Gambier.
A DEPICTION OF THE MARRIAGE
Published on 3 July 2014 Excerpt from the film: Rider and Writer (the life of Lindsay). By Brenton Manser and the Vanguard.
They make a curious picture, Gordon and his ‘child wife.’ He had turned 29 the day before; he was silent, retiring, intellectual, unmistakably an aristocrat. She was a simple, unsophisticated little girl of the people, who had very scanty schooling. The two had in common a passionate love of horses and of riding. Her downrightness was often an antidote to his introspection, and in all their short married life she was a good wife to him, as far as in her lay. But as she said once, “I didn’t take much notice of his poetry. He was always scribbling, but I felt more interest in his horses.”
HEIR TO A FORTUNE
His mother had died in 1859, leaving him a third of her fortune. For two years the trustees had sought for the missing heir. Now they had discovered him they communicated the agreeable fact that nearly £7,000 awaited his pleasure in the bank.
The beneficiary was astonished. He had always taken it for granted that the family lived on the captain’s salary and pension, and had never dreamt that Mrs. Gordon had money of her own.
How he received the news of his mother’s death we cannot tell; it is clear that he never wrote to her from Australia. There was not the same strong bond of affection as that which united father and son. Yet she must have retained some feeling for her wayward boy, since she left him this goodly legacy.
The£ 7,000 was very welcome, for Gordon had lately discovered that there were profitable investments to be made in the South-East, where every day new land was being opened up and values steadily rising. He had already, before he new of the legacy, bought two small properties near Mount Gambier, for which he paid £220 and £60 respectively from his savings. On one of these at the Yahl paddocks near his friend Blakesley, he began to build a little house and sometimes stayed there himself. He engaged a man named John Smith and his wife to look after the place.
Poor Gordon! His intentions were excellent, but he never had any head for business. He was a guileless as a child in practical affairs, and took advice from any ‘friend’ who happened along as readily as he would ‘lend’ him a fiver. The inheritance, if properly invested, should have returned at least £400 a year, which for his few needs would have been ample. For the first few years all went well, and as Gordon told Woods with some satisfaction ‘he would have more time to himself.’But how that could be,’ the priest remarked, ‘I don’t know; for I never knew a man more solitary!’