He founded the Marischal College in Aberdeen in 1593 and was Royal commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland in 1609.
The College was constructed on the site of a medieval Franciscan Friary, disused after the Reformation.
•
The building was substantially extended between 1893 and 1905 by Alexander Marshall Mackenzie, and with its new "granite cage" front, enclosing the quadrangle, it became the second-largest granite building in the world (exceeded only by the Escorial Palace near Madrid).
In 1795 the magistrates of Aberdeen appointed him to the chair of divinity, and soon after he was made principal of Marischal College.
college football | Eton College | University College London | Dartmouth College | King's College London | Harvard College | Trinity College | college | Oberlin College | Boston College | University College Dublin | Williams College | Vassar College | college basketball | Winchester College | Imperial College London | Collège de France | Middlebury College | Berklee College of Music | Royal College of Art | Smith College | Royal College of Music | Yale College | New College, Oxford | City College of New York | Amherst College | Magdalen College, Oxford | Kenyon College | Bowdoin College | Naval War College |
He assisted in the reconstruction of Marischal College, Aberdeen, and in order to do for St Andrews what he had done for Glasgow, he was appointed Principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews, in 1580.
The younger son of Sir John Gordon of Pitlurg, Knt, (died 1600) by his spouse Isabel, daughter of William Forbes, 7th Lord Forbes, Robert Gordon was educated at the Marischal College, University of Aberdeen, of which he was the first graduate, and afterwards at the University of Paris.
In modern times, former college names may refer to specific university buildings, such as the King's College and Marischal College buildings in Aberdeen, the Old College and New College at Edinburgh and the 'Old College' to refer to the former buildings of the University of Glasgow before its move in the 19th century to Gilmorehill.