Robert Gordon (minister) was built for him. In September 1825 he moved to the New North Church, collegiate charge, and in 1830 to the High Church. In 1823 Aberdeen University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Divinity (DD). In 1827 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being Robert Stevenson. From 1836 till 28 November 1843 he was collector of the Ministers' Widows' Fund. In the 1830s he is listed as living at 27 Lauriston in the Tollcross area of the city. When the conflict which led to the disruption of the Scottish church began, Gordon sided
Robert Gordon University future of UK higher education recommended major expansion, which led to the renaming of the institution to Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology to suggest its increasing role in higher education rather than further education. As well as new "plate-glass" universities, reforms following the report created the polytechnics in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It also created the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) to allow non-university institutions (like the polytechnics and Scottish central institutions) to run programmes that graduated students with CNAA degrees. The Institute's first CNAA degree programmes began in pharmacy in 1967, then in engineering, chemistry and physics