Arthur Charles Hamilton-Gordon, 1st Baron Stanmore, GCMG, KJStJ (26 November 1829 – 30 January 1912)  was a British Liberal Party politician and colonial administrator. He had extensive contact with Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.

 

Gordon was born in London in 1829. He was the youngest son of George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen and his second wife, Harriet Douglas. His mother was the widow of Viscount Hamilton.[2] Gordon was educated privately and then at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society in 1849. After graduating in 1851, he worked as Assistant Private Secretary to the British Prime Minister (his father) between 1852 and 1855, and was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Beverley from 1854 to 1857, before holding a number of colonial governorships:

 

He was created Baron Stanmore, of Great Stanmore, in the County of Middlesex on 21 August 1893.[7]

 

In 1897 Lord Stanmore became the chairman of the Pacific Islands Company Ltd (‘PIC’), which was a company formed by John T. Arundel that was based in London with its trading activities in the Pacific that involved mining phosphate rock on Banaba (then known as Ocean Island) and Nauru.[8] John T. Arundel and Lord Stanmore were responsible for financing the new opportunities and negotiating with the German company that controlled the licences to mine in Nauru. In 1902 the interests of PIC were merged with Jaluit Gesellschaft of Hamburg, to form the Pacific Phosphate Company, (‘PPC’) to engage in phosphate mining in Nauru and Banaba.