Charles Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke

Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke

Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke PC FRS (* 2 April 1799 in Sydney Lodge , Southampton , England ; † 17th September 1873 ) was a British politician of the Conservative Party and Admiral of the Royal Navy , the 1831-1834 Member of the House of Commons and from 1834 until his death in 1873 Lord Lieutenant of the County of Cambridgeshire was. In 1834 he inherited the title of Earl of Hardwicke and was a member of the House of Lords until his death . He also served in 1852 as Postmaster General and from 1858 to 1859 as Lord Seal Keeper .

Life

Family origins and siblings

Yorke was the second of five children and the eldest son of Vice Admiral Joseph Sidney Yorke , who represented various constituencies as a member of the House of Commons from 1806 to 1831, and his wife Elizabeth Weake Rattray. His grandfather Charles Yorke was Lord Chancellor of Great Britain for three days in 1770 .

His older sister, Lady Agneta Elizabeth Yorke, was the wife of banker Robert Cooper Lee Bevan, who was a senior partner at the Barclays universal bank .

His younger brother Henry Reginald Yorke served as Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy, while his second younger brother Eliot Thomas Yorke represented the Conservative Party as a member of the House of Commons from 1835 to 1865. The youngest brother was the priest Grantham Munton Yorke , among other things, 1874-1879 Dean of Worcester Cathedral was.

Royal Navy officer

After Yorke 1810-1813 his education steeped in tradition at the, elite Harrow School had graduated, he joined the Royal Navy in February 1813 and was for a two-year training in May 1815 Midshipman ( Midshipman ) on the flagship of the Crown Prince Appointed at Naval Base Spithead . He then temporarily served on the liner HMS Leviathan and then on the liner HMS Queen Charlotte , with which he took part in the bombing of Algiers on August 27, 1816 under the command of Admiral Edward Pellew .

Yorke then found use on board the HMS Leander , the flagship of Rear Admiral David Milne in the area of North America Station , the naval bases in North America . On August 14, 1819, he was aboard the HMS Phaeton to Lieutenant Commander ( Lieutenant Commander ) transported whose commander following his promotion to Commander (Commander) on 18 May 1822nd In August 1823 he took command of the brig sloop HMS Alacrity when it was transferred to the Mediterranean , where he actively participated in the fight against piracy there.

On June 8, 1825, Yorkes was promoted to captain at sea . Most recently, between 1828 and 1831, he was in command of the corvette HMS Alligator , which was also stationed in the Mediterranean and operated mainly in the Ionian and Aegean Seas .

Member of the House of Commons, Member of the House of Lords and Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire

After his return Yorke began his political career and was elected as a candidate for the Conservative Party on July 13, 1831 for the first time a member of the House of Commons, in which he initially represented the constituency of Reigate until December 10, 1832 . He was then re-elected to the House of Commons for the Conservative Tories on December 10, 1832 , and represented the Cambridgeshire constituency until November 18, 1834 .

After his uncle Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke , the eldest brother of his father, died on November 18, 1834 without living male descendants, he inherited the title of 4th Earl of Hardwicke and the subordinate title of nobility as 4th Viscount Royston, in the County of Cambridge and as 4th Baron Hardwicke, of Hardwicke, in the County of Gloucester , each of which belonged to the Peerage of Great Britain . Thereby he became a member of the House of Lords and belonged to it until his death.

At the same time he took over the office of Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire from his uncle in 1834 and held this office as representative of Queen Victoria in this county until his death. He was succeeded by Charles Watson Townley .

Lord in Waiting and Minister of Post

He held his first government office from August 30, 1841 to June 30, 1846 as Lord-in-Waiting in the government of Prime Minister Robert Peel . As such he was the companion of the King of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm IV. On his visit to England in 1842 . In 1843 he held the office of President of the Royal Agricultural Society of England . From 1844 to 1845 he was also in command of the yacht Black Eagle , on which he drove the Tsar of Russia , Nicholas I , across the English Channel . She gave him a valuable snuff box decorated with diamonds.

In 1847 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and also acted as advisor to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster .

On March 1, 1852, the Earl of Hardwicke was appointed by Prime Minister Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby as Postmaster General in his first cabinet, which he belonged to the end of Derby's tenure on December 17, 1852. At the same time he was appointed a member of the Privy Council in 1852 .

Lord Seal Keeper

After he no longer had any functions in the Royal Navy, he was taken on January 12, 1854 with the rank of Rear Admiral in the retirement list.

The Earl of Hardwicke, that of the University of Cambridge an Honorary Doctorate of Law (Honorary Doctor of Law) and from the University of Oxford an honorary Doctor of Civil Law (Honorary Doctor of Civil Law) was given, was on 26 February 1858 by the Earl of Derby, after this had again taken over the office of Prime Minister, appointed Lord Privy Seal in his second government and remained in this office until June 11, 1859.

On November 24, 1858 he was promoted to Vice Admiral and last on December 3, 1863 to Admiral.

Marriage and offspring

Yorke married Susan Liddell, daughter of Thomas Liddell, 1st Baron Ravensworth , on October 14, 1833 . From this marriage three daughters and five sons were born.

The eldest daughter, Lady Elizabeth Philippa Yorke, was married twice, first to Henry John Adeane , who was a Member of the House of Commons from 1857 to 1865 and represented the constituency of Cambridgeshire , and to Michael Biddulph , who was from 1865 to 1900 Was a member of the House of Commons and in 1903 as 1st Baron Biddulph was raised to the hereditary nobility (Hereditary Peerage) , making him a member of the House of Lords.

After his death in 1873, his eldest son Charles Philip Yorke , who was also a Member of the House of Commons for the Cambridgeshire constituency between 1865 and 1873, inherited the title of 5th Earl of Hardwicke and the associated titles of nobility, making him a member of the House of Lords. From 1874 and 1880 he also served as the so-called Master of the Buckhounds , a function in the royal court.

His second eldest daughter, Lady Mary Catherine Yorke, was married to William George Craven, an officer in the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment . The third eldest daughter, Lady Agneta Harriet Yorke, married Rear Admiral Victor Alexander Montagu, a son of John Montagu, 7th Earl of Sandwich .

His second eldest son John Manners Yorke was after the death of his unmarried and childless nephew Edward Philip Henry, 6th Earl of Hardwicke in 1904, the title of 7th Earl of Hardwicke and the associated title of nobility and thereby he was a member of the House of Lords.

The third oldest son, Victor Alexander Yorke, served as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery , but died on December 23, 1867 at the age of 25. His fourth eldest son, Elliot Constantine Yorke, was also a member of the House of Commons from 1874 until his death in 1878, in which he represented the Cambridgeshire constituency. The youngest son Hon. Alexander Grantham Yorke served from 1884 to 1901 as one of the Gentleman (Groom in Waiting) by Queen Victoria.

Web links

• Charles Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke at the Hansard (English)
• Entry in Cracroft's Peerage
• Entry in Leigh Rayment Peerage
• Admiral Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke, on thepeerage.com , accessed August 17, 2015.

predecessor	Office	successor
Philip Yorke	Earl of Hardwicke 1834-1873	Charles Yorke