Alice Mary Gordon was a British author and writer on the aesthetics of domestic electricity. Gordon was born Alice Mary Brandreth in Shimla about 1855 to Edward Lyall Brandreth and Louisa Marriott. Her father was a Justice of the Peace and Member of the Council of India. She was their only child. During her life she was known by her husbands' names, making her Alice Gordon or Mrs J E H Gordon as well as Alice Butcher, Mrs John Butcher and Lady Danesfort.
Alice Gordon
She married the electrical engineer James Edward Henry Gordon in 1878 and took a close interest in promote supporting his commercial electrical lighting business until his sudden death on 3 February 1893, whereupon she returned to writing on other topics. They had three children, Dorothy Frances, Peter Christian and James Geoffrey Gordon. It was through collaborating with her husband that Alice became interested in electricity: he had studied this topic at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge under James Clerk Maxwell, and their first marital home in Dorking was adapted to extend such work. As she later wrote: 'Our early married life was spend in the country, where we owned a large laboratory and a small house attached. In those days I was bottle-washer and laboratory assistant to my husband'. When they moved to London, their home became a kind of Salon for those of a technical mind with an interest in developing the uses of electricity. Gordon was presented to Queen Victoria. While her husband became a significant figure in the metropolitan electrical schemes, Gordon became part of the PR movement for the domestic use of electricity using her own home in Kensington as a showcase. She took to writing for the Fortnightly Review melding interior decoration with the new lighting opportunities. Her suggestions and advice became known worldwide. Her increasing fame lead to a book Decorative Electricity named after her column, with illustrations by Herbert Fell, and of her working with such people as Agnes Clerke and Mrs Humphrey Ward to ensure the representation of women writers in The Woman's Building at the Chicago Exhibition.
