William Brampton Gurdon

Sir William Brampton Gurdon (5 September 1840 – 31 May 1910) was a British civil servant who became a Liberal Party politician. Early life Gurdon was the youngest son of Brampton Gurdon (MP for West Norfolk) of Letton, Norfolk and his wife Henrietta Susanna, daughter of the 1st Baron Colborne. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1863 with a BA degree. His elder brother, Robert, would also enter politics and served as an MP 1880-1895. Career Gurdon entered the Treasury as a clerk in 1863, and became private secretary to William Ewart Gladstone when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1865 to 1866 and when Prime Minister from 1868 to 1874. In 1879 he served as a special commissioner in South Africa following the Anglo-Zulu War, and then in 1881 on the Royal Commission appointed to draw up the Pretoria Convention. Parliament At the 1885 general election Gurdon stood unsuccessfully in South West Norfolk. He was unsuccessful again at Rotherhithe in 1886 and in Colchester at a by-election in 1888.