General Charles GordonPrint Page

The Gordon Technical College commemorates General Charles Gordon of Khartoum and demonstrates the strong cultural and emotional ties to Britain and the British Empire and the values such a hero represented to the community at the time of construction.

The Gordon Institute of TAFE was opened in 1887 as the Gordon Memorial Technical College. The college had its beginnings in 1885, when 500 people met at the Geelong Town Hall to decide upon a memorial to General Charles George Gordon, who died at Khartoum in January 1885. William Humble (owner of the Vulcan Foundry) and George Link (Matthew Flinders School headmaster) decided that a school of art be erected in his honour. The foundation stone of the Gordon Technical College was laid on 20th June, 1887 by the Jon Francis Ormond. M.L.C. a principal benefactor.

Gordon Technical College GEELONG, Monday.
This afternoon the memorial stone of the college, which is about to be established on a portion of Johnstone Park and fronting Fenwick-street, was formally laid by Mr. Francis Ormond, M.L.C. Prior to the ceremony taking place the visitors from Melbourne, representing the Technological Commission, together with a number of members of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons, were entertained by the town corporation at dinner in the mechanics hall. The building proposed to be erected will, when finished, cost £2000, but at present only the main hall is to be erected, at a cost of £329. The mayor of the town, in a brief address at the stone, urged that every support should be given to the college, and pointed out the great value of the technical education proposed to be given.

Mr. Ormond, having been presented with a handsome silver trowel and an ebony mallet, formally laid the memorial stone. He regretted the absence of Sir W. J. Clarke, and congratulated the committee of the college on the happy circumstance of the event commemorating the jubilee of the Queen's reign and perpetuating the memory of General Gordon, who was a faithful and loyal subject, a gallant soldier, a true man and a Christian hero. The college was designed to provide educational facilities for promoting the intellectual, moral and social welfare of the people, and the knowledge imparted would better fit the artisans for the trades and callings they would be engaged in. They were trying to raise the working classes to a higher level. Mr. C. P. Blackett, Professor Kernot, Mr. Burt, Mr. J. H. Connor, M.L.C., and Messrs. C. Andrews and J. Donoghy, M.L.A.`s, all spoke in support of the objects of the college, and the proceedings terminated with the singing of the National Anthem.
Age (Melbourne), 21 June 1887.

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