William Gordon, Lord Strathnaver
British politician
William Gordon (19 December 1683 – 13 July 1720), known by the courtesy title of Lord Strathnaver from 4 March 1703, was a Scottish politician who sat briefly in the British House of Commons in 1708 until he was declared ineligible, being the eldest son of a Scottish peer. In 1719, the family name was changed to Sutherland, when his father was recognised as the Chief of Clan Sutherland.
Early life
Lord Strathnaver was the eldest son of John Gordon, 16th Earl of Sutherland and his first wife Helen Cochrane, daughter of William Cochrane, Lord Cochrane. He joined the army in 1702 and was a Colonel of Foot. By this time the effects of his heavy drinking were apparent. He married, with 60,000 merks, under a contract dated 9 October 1705, Katharine Morison, daughter of William Morison MP. His father then gave him responsibility for the Sutherland estate and thereby, the family’s electoral interest.
Parliamentary career
Strathnaver was returned in a contest at the 1708 British general election as the first Member of Parliament for Tain Burghs. His election, and that of a number of other heirs to Scottish peerages, was contested. Before the Act of Union 1707, the eldest sons of peers were ineligible to be elected to the Parliament of Scotland. No such restriction existed for the Parliament of England.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8010006. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1683, 1720, 1703 and 1708.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Gordon, Lord Strathnaver” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.