Robert Gordon University some modern universities in the UK which were created following the government reforms of 1992, it has never been a polytechnic (these were never part of the Scottish education system). Robert Gordon was a Scottish merchant, who had grown up in Aberdeen and graduated from Marischal College. Following a successful career, mostly in Danzig where he amassed a fortune, he retired to Aberdeen around 1720. In the last decade of his life, he prepared plans for a Hospital similar to that founded in Edinburgh by George Heriot. The purpose of Robert Gordon's Hospital was ""the Maintenance, Aliment, Entertainment and Education
Robert Gordon of Straloch by Jameson, the Scottish van Dyck, hangs in the great hall of Marischal College. He was the grandfather of another Robert Gordon, the founder of Robert Gordon's Hospital which later became Robert Gordon's College and The Robert Gordon University. Robert Gordon of Straloch Robert Gordon of Straloch (14 September 1580 – 18 August 1661) was a Scottish cartographer, noted as a poet, mathematician, antiquary, and geographer, and for his collection of music for the lute. The younger son of Sir John Gordon of Pitlurg, Knight, (died 1600) by his spouse Isabel, daughter of William Forbes, 7th Lord Forbes, Robert Gordon