Sir George Grey made him inspector of schools, then resident magistrate, and eventually civil commissioner in Upper Waikato which the Kingite Māori considered their own land.

This incident and the ambush and killing of British troops walking along a beach near New Plymouth, led to a restart of the war between the Māori King Movement and the New Zealand government in 1863.

[1][6] He joined Sir Henry Drummond-Wolff, Lord Randolph Churchill and Arthur Balfour in the Fourth Party as an advocate of Tory democracy.

The government fell in January 1886 but when the Conservatives returned to office, in July of the same year, he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for India by Salisbury.

[10] Gorst remained committed to the principles of Tory democracy which he had advocated in the days of the Fourth Party, and continued take an active interest in the housing of the poor, the education and care of their children, and in social questions generally, both in parliament and in the press.

[11] Gorst objected to Joseph Chamberlain's proposals for tariff reform, and at the general election of 1906 he stood as an independent Free Trader, but came third, behind the two official Unionist candidates, and lost his seat.

Gorst died in London in April 1916, aged 80, and lies buried in St Andrew's churchyard, Castle Combe, Wilts.

An account of his connection with Lord Randolph Churchill will be found in the Fourth Party (1906), by his younger son, Harold Edward Gorst.