On 9 August of that year he was instituted to the living of Heavitree, near Exeter, and on 27 May 1572 he proceeded M.A. He was a noted preacher, upholding the reformed doctrine, and at the same time defending the order of the Church of England.
It was erected in memory of General Gordon who was killed in the Siege of Khartoum in 1885, and paid for by Prebendary Barnes, vicar of Heavitree, who was a friend of the General's.
The first trams in 1882, ran from the Bude Hotel in London Inn Square to a stop on Heavitree Road near St Luke's College and was extended to Livery Dole in May 1893.