Major Sir William Eden Evans Gordon (8 August 1857 – 31 October 1913), was a British MP who previously served as a military diplomat in India.
As a political officer on secondment from the British Indian Army from 1876 to 1897 during the British Raj, he was attached to the Foreign Department of the Indian Government. His career in India was a mixture of military administrative business on the volatile North-West Frontier, and diplomacy and foreign politics advising Maharajas or accompanying the Viceroy in the Princely States.
After leaving the Army, Evans Gordon returned to Britain and in 1900 was elected as Conservative Party MP for Stepney on an anti-alien platform. As a result of the pogroms in Eastern Europe, an increasing number of Jews were arriving in Britain either to stay, or en route for America. Evans Gordon, as a 'restrictionist', was heavily and actively involved in the passing of the Aliens Act 1905, which sought to limit the number of people allowed to enter Britain, even temporarily. He held Stepney from 1900 to 1907.
William Eden Evans Gordon was born in Chatham, Kent, the youngest son of Major-General Charles Spalding Evans Gordon (19 September 1813-18 January 1901) and his first wife, Catherine Rose (23 July 1815 – 1858), daughter of Rev. Dr. Alexander Rose, D.D., a Presbyterian minister of Inverness. William was the youngest of seven children. See also Family tree below.