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Biographical history
Gerald Gordon was born in Kimberley on 19 January 1909. He attended SACS Junior School from 1914 to 1919. He then attended Kimberley Boys’ High School where he won the London College of Preceptors’ prize for the top place in the British Empire in Latin and Greek in 1924. In 1925 he matriculated in the first class, being awarded the Kimberley Dux Medal. He obtained the De Beers and Diamond Scholarships and in 1926 commenced a BA degree in Classics at the University of Cape Town, where he won the Douallier Prize for the best student in Latin and became the joint holder of the Governor-General’s Prize for top place in the first year. He then proceeded to study for the LLB degree and in his final year in 1930 was awarded the Hyman Liberman Scholarship as the outstanding student.
In 1931 Gordon joined the Cape Bar. In 1936 he published the first edition of his pioneering work on insurance, The South African Law of Insurance. In 1954 together with Arthur Suzman, Gordon published The Law of Compulsory Motor Insurance. He became a King’s Counsel in 1949. His practice dealt mainly with commercial law, but in time he took up civil rights cases relating to segregation laws and appeared for the defence in a number of political cases such as the prosecutions of Neville Alexander and Fikile Bam. He was chairman of the Cape Bar for three terms between 1965 and 1972, and encouraged the protection of civil liberty. In this capacity he was successful in opposing government plans to strike those listed as communists off the rolls of advocates and attorneys, and made representations to the government for the release of detainees such as Bram Fischer and Albie Sachs.
In 1940 Gordon joined the South African Infantry as a private and served in the front line in Abyssinia, Suez, Egypt and Libya. He then became an information officer and was demobilised in the rank of captain in September 1945.
Inspired by the ideal of building a better society, on returning to the Bar after the war, he was not satisfied with being only a legal practitioner. In 1946, Leo Marquard, Gordon and a few former army information officers founded the Institute of Citizenship to carry on the struggle for democratic values and civil rights. He served on its council from its inception and became Honorary Life President in 1981. Out of the Institute came the idea in the early fifties for the University of Cape Town Summer School. Gordon also supported the Civil Rights League which was formed in 1949.
In protest against the government’s plans to abolish the entrenched sections of the South Africa Act that guaranteed the franchise, and remove the coloured voters from the common roll, he helped form and became national vice-chairman of the War Veterans Torch Commando. The aims of the movement were to uphold the principles agreed on at Union in 1910 as a moral duty; to cause the repeal of legislation violating them; to secure freedom of worship, language and speech and access to the courts; to eliminate totalitarianism; and to promote social harmony.
As a member of the Liberal Party, he stood for election as a Member of Parliament for the Sea Point constituency in the 1958 general election and retained his deposit. He resigned from the Liberal Party in 1960 and joined the Progressive Party in 1961.
Gordon was possibly best known as a staunch protector of the rights of the individual and as a protagonist of the rule of law. From the 1950s onwards until the year of his death, he was a prolific writer of newspaper articles and a speaker on legal, political, constitutional and social issues, and the role of the judiciary, in the political context of the times. His outspokenness was not looked upon with favour by the authorities and he had to endure passport restrictions and a raid on his home by the security forces in 1964. Gordon also wrote and spoke on Jewish issues.
In addition to his legal works, articles and papers, Gordon was also the author of three novels, Let the Day Perish, The Crooked Rain and Four People, which were translated into several languages. His interest in writing led to his involvement with the Cape Town PEN Centre (International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists) and being elected as National President of SA PEN. In this capacity he made representations to the government for the removal of banning orders that had been placed on writers and their works. Gordon was also a director of Purnell & Sons (publishers) and Chairman of Contrast, a South African literary journal.
From the late 1950s Gordon resided in a bungalow at Clifton. This community had unusual leasehold rights, in that the land was rented from the municipality but the houses were privately owned. Gordon played a leading role in the long-established Clifton-on-Sea and District Bungalow Owners’ Association which sought to represent the interests of the lessees to the municipality and ultimately achieved freehold rights.
Gordon was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa by the University of Cape Town in 1996.
In 1960 Gordon married Nancy Muriel Baines, a literary critic, and they had two children, Stephen and Vanessa. Gerald Gordon died on 30 August 1998.
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Scope and content
Series A: Personal papers
Particularly notable among the personal papers are Gordon’s wartime correspondence with his family; a small number of subsequent personal letters; a photocopied dossier of news clippings about or by Gordon; documents relating to passport and travel issues, given restrictions Gordon encountered; a report he wrote together with correspondence about a police raid on his home in 1964; and a bound volume containing extensive news clippings and reviews of Gordon’s literary works and, to a lesser extent, his legal works, dating from 1936 onwards. The personal papers are in some cases interspersed with news clippings on related matters.
Series B: Legal practice and publications
This series contains Gordon’s legal qualifications; a legal opinion he wrote as a young advocate in 1930 and a news clipping of a libel case held in 1935 in which he was counsel. The largest part of the series constitutes the proceedings of court cases in which Gordon appeared as counsel, including prominent civil rights cases related to railway segregation laws. There are correspondence and reviews about the publication of a later edition of the South African Law of Insurance and Supplement.
Series C: Union Defence Force
This series comprises mainly notes on courses that Gordon attended in 1942 and certificates, and training source material and notes for his own lectures, c. 1940-1944. There is an issue of The S.A. Jewish Chronicle (18 July 1941) containing comments on the letters of Gerald Gordon published in it while on service.
Series D: Institute for Citizenship and the Civil Rights League
This series comprises a single file containing agendas, minutes and annual reports of the Institute for Citizenship, 1985-1988 (incomplete), a news clipping on its history; and minutes and newsletters of the Civil Rights League, 1957-1994 (incomplete).
Series E: War Veterans Torch Commando
This series comprises a single file containing the Constitution, and National and Regional Congress agendas of the War Veterans Torch Commando, financial statements, publicity material and news clippings dated 1952 (and also contains a memorandum by L Kane-Berman on the history of the Torch Commando and related correspondence dated 1988-1989).
Series F: Liberal and Progressive Parties
This series comprises three files relating respectively to Gordon’s campaign for election as Liberal Party MP in 1958 and related matters; policy documents, news clippings and correspondence mainly dated 1958-1962, also pertaining to Gordon’s resignation from the Liberal Party in 1960 and joining of the Progressive Party in 1961; and a programme of the Liberal Party Workshop held at Rhodes University in 1985, and a paper on the history of the party by Peter Brown.
Series G: Cape Bar Council
This series comprises a single file of correspondence that Gordon dealt with during his terms of chairmanship, and is dated 1965-1970, and 1973-1974.
Series H: The Cape Town PEN Centre (International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists
This series comprises seven files of correspondence (ca. 1960-1982), newsletters (1961-1982) and news clippings, as well as minutes and statements, 1961-1982 (incomplete). There is also a file kept by Mary Renault, long-serving President of the Centre.
It should be noted that the Cape Town PEN Centre also donated its official records to UCT Libraries and the collection is referenced BC751.
Series J: Clifton-on-Sea and District Bungalow Owners’ Association
There are two sub-series. The first comprises eight files that cover the period 1973-1989 and deal with development and planning issues relevant to the members of the Association, including the declaration of the bungalow areas of Clifton as a national monument. A significant proportion of the material relates to the Association’s opposition to a City Council development plan of 1981 for the Clifton area which included an international hotel. Some if not all the files appear to have been kept officially on behalf of the Association.
The second series comprises 17 files and a photograph album that cover the period 1946-1997 (incomplete) and deal with valuations, rentals, leasehold and freehold reflecting the lessees’ ongoing struggle to avoid disproportionate rental increases on their stands and to obtain freehold rights. Some if not all the files appear to have been kept officially on behalf of the Association.
It should be noted that in 1981 Mr L Sachs of the Association donated a collection of its papers dating from 1923 to UCT Libraries. The collection is referenced as BC 779 and a list is available.
Series K: Articles and papers on constitutional, political, social and legal issues
A significant part of the collection comprises articles and papers written by Gerald Gordon on constitutional, political, social and legal issues. Where appropriate, the original order in which notes, drafts and published articles or delivered papers were kept interspersed with source material and related correspondence has been retained in this series, while the papers were sorted and grouped alphabetically according to subject as reflected in the inventory.
Gerald Gordon wrote and published prolifically in newspapers from the 1950s until the year of his death. The main themes are civil rights, rule of law, and the role of the judiciary in context the political environment of the times. The inventory contains an alphabetical list of themes.
Series L: Miscellaneous
This series contains a typescript of the hearings of the Commission of Enquiry into the Langa Riots, 1960 and copy of part of R E van der Ross’s doctoral thesis A Political History of the Cape Coloured People.
Series M: Additions
Notable in this series are materials regarding Gerald Gordon’s awarding of an honorary doctorate by UCT.