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Single Person record details
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Back
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Person Code
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NA9056
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Forenames
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Seton Paul
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Surname
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Gordon
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Dates
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1886-1977
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Epithet
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nature writer and photographer
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Activity
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Seton Paul Gordon (1886-1977), nature writer and photographer, was born in Aberdeen on 11 April 1886, the only child of William Gordon (1839-1924), advocate, town clerk of the City of Aberdeen, and Ella Mary Paul. He was educated privately and then at Oxford University where he gained a BA in Natural Science and a Diploma in Rural Economy, after which he studied forestry in Russia, Germany and France. He became a keen photographer, especially of birds. In 1907 he published his first book 'Birds of the Loch and Mountain (London, 1907), illustrated with 90 of his own photographs. He also wrote nature articles and covered the Braemar gathering for 'The Times' and the 'Morning Post'. From 1908 he attended lectures on zoology at the University of Aberdeen and in October 1908 he went to Exeter College, Oxford, to study natural sciences. He continued to work as a freelance writer throughout his time at university and afterwards. During the First World War, he was appointed to the coast-watching service on the West coast of Scotland, posing as a birdwatcher. He was responsible for recruiting other coast-watchers and by 1915 had recruited 104 men. Thereafter he served as Lieutenant in the navy until demobilisation in 1919. He married Audrey Seton Gordon (nee Pease) (d 1959) at Otterburn on 19 August 1915. After the First World War, Seton Gordon took up nature writing and photography as a profession. He lectured on Bird Life, including to the Royal Institution and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and was the photographer for the Oxford University Spitsbergen Expedition, 1921. He served as a JP in Inverness-shire. Gordon's publications include: 'Birds of the Loch and Mountain'; 'Amid Snowy Wastes'; 'Afoot in the Hebrides', 1950; 'Highland Summer', 1971; and he contributed to many periodicals. His first wife, Audrey, died in 1959 and he married Elizabeth Badger (widow of Colonel Reginald Badger of Biddlesden, Northants) in 1960. He died at home on 18 March 1977.
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Notes
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See Raymond Eagle 'Seton Gordon: The Life and Times of a Highland Gentleman' (Moffat, 1991).
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Associated records
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