New Spalding Club > House of Gordon > Gordons under arms

THE MAKING OF THE MUSTER. XVU
her own son, the Marquis of Huntly, as " my George". As a matter
of fact, the Dukes of Gordon made a regular point of getting commissions
in both Services for their natural sons, several of whom figure honour-
ably in this book.
The inclusion of hyphened surnames — used for the most part
through the bearer's maternal descent — is fully justified by the Seton-
Gordon precedent, and is thoroughly in accord with the new tendency
in genealogy to widen the old criterion of male-primogeniture generally.
Surnames of the "Gordon-" and the "-Gordon" type have been en-
tered on the combined precedent of the Army List which indexes
"Gordon-Lennox," and of the Dictionary of National Biography which
enters the same name as "Lennox, Gordon-". In any case, it would
have been foolish to have given the service career of Colonel Gordon-
Gilmour and to have omitted that of his brothers, who bear the name of
Wolrige-Gordon. On the other hand, one would not give the career of
the former's son, Mr. Little-Gilmour, had he been in the service, not
merely on account of space, but because he has dropped the Gordon.
This may seem illogical, and yet there is a certain rough sense in no-
menclature, for as in this case it expresses in the substitution of one
surname for another a new set of preponderating family interests.
Precisely the same influence is illustrated in the case of the Earls of
Sutherland, who deliberately (in spite of much opposition) dropped the
"Gordon" which they had used for generations, and resumed their
original patronymic (or rather matronymic) of " Sutherland," because
they wished to throw off any claim to headship on the part of the
ducal Gordons, whom they ostentatiously opposed in the Jacobite
struggle.
Having thus explained what Mrs. Skelton undertook to do, it is
interesting to know how she did it, all the more as students in search of
the careers of officers bearing any surname other than Gordon will have
to go through precisely the same process. When Mr. Anderson proposed
the task to her, Mrs. Skelton happened to be holidaying in Aberdeen,
but with characteristic energy she decided to make a start on the spot,
although the only material available (in King's College Library) was
the Gentleman's Magazine and the Scots Magazine. Fortunately, these
useful publications had a way of reprinting all kinds of appointments
from the London Gazette; they also specialised in births, marriages, and