General Charles GordonPrint Page

The monument cemmemorates General Charles Gordon who died in 1885 during the siege of Khartoum in Sudan.
 
At some unknown point in the monument’s history the memorial was considered unsafe and the lower section of the memorial was installed on its side in its current position. A ceremony was held at the memorial in 1935, the fiftieth anniversary of his death. 

Major-General Charles George Gordon, CB (28 January 1833 – 26 January 1885), known as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum, was a British army officer and administrator. He is remembered for his campaigns in China and northern Africa.

Gordon organised the defence of Khartoum, with a siege starting on March 18, 1884. The British had decided to abandon the Sudan, but it was clear that Gordon had other plans, and the public increasingly called for his relief. It was not until August that the government decided to take steps to relieve Gordon, and only by November was the British relief force, called the Nile Expedition under the command of Field Marshal Garnet Wolseley, ready.

On the 24th January 1885 two of the steamers started for Khartoum, but on arriving there on the 28th, they found that the city had been captured and Gordon dead, having been killed two days previously (2 days before his 52nd birthday). After he had been beheaded by Mahdi Mohammed Ahmed`s soldiers, his head was displayed on a pike.

(From our correspondent) - MELBOURNE, This Day, A General Gordon memorial obelisk was unveiled at Warrnambool yesterday, in the presence of the militia which were paraded for the purpose. Speeches were delivered by Archdeacon Beamish, the Rev. George Tait, and Mr. Joseph Mack, and subscriptions to defray the cost of the memorial placed on the stone.
Globe (Sydney), 26 May 1886.

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