During his time at Gravesend, Gordon was much involved in charity work, trying to ensure that homeless boys he found begging on the street did not go hungry while attempting to find them homes and jobs. Many of the "scuttlers" as Gordon fondly called the homeless boys were taken in by him to live at his home, the Fort House. Outside of the Fort House were graffito written on the wall by one of the evidently less educated boys that read: "God Bless the Kernel". Another "scuttler" later recalled: "He made me feel, first of all, the meaning of the phrase, the Goodness of God. Goodness become to me, through Gordon, the most desirable of ideas...We were under the spell of Gordon's personality. We lived in the magic of his mystery-enchanted".