Charles Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke

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Admiral Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke, PC (2 April 1799 – 17 September 1873) was a Royal Navy officer and Conservative politician.

Background

Born at Sydney Lodge, in Hamble le Rice, Hardwicke was the eldest son of Admiral Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke, second son of Charles Yorke, Lord Chancellor, by his second wife, Agneta Johnson. He was a nephew of Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke. He was educated at Harrow and at the Royal Naval College, where he was awarded the second medal.

Hardwicke entered the Royal Navy in May 1815 as midshipman on Template:HMS, the flagship at Spithead. Later, he served in the Mediterranean, on Template:HMS (18) and Template:HMS (74) then subsequently Template:HMS (100), the flagship of Lord Exmouth, by whom he was entrusted with the command of a gunboat at the bombardment of Algiers. He later joined Template:HMS (60) under the flag of Sir David Milne, on the North American station, where he was given the command of the Jane, a small vessel carrying dispatches between Halifax and Bermuda. He was then appointed acting lieutenant of Template:HMS (18) and after a few months commissioned in the rank of lieutenant in August 1819. The next October, he joined the frigate Template:HMS on the Halifax station, until appointed to the command of Template:HMS in 1823 on the Mediterranean station, in this post he was employed, before and after he obtained the rank of captain in 1825, in watching the movements of the Turko-Egyptian forces and in the suppression of piracy.

Between 1828 and 1831, he took command of Template:HMS (28), on the same station and took an active part in the naval operation in connection with the struggle between Greece and Turkey. Lastly, between 1844 and 1845, for short periods, he assumed command of the steam yacht HMS Black Eagle and Template:HMS (120), in which he carried the Emperor of Russia, Nicholas I, to England. He attained flag rank in 1838. In 1849, while commanding Template:HMS, he acted as a mediator between the Mazzinian rebel and the Kingdom of Sardinia during the rebellion in Genoa following the defeat during the First War of Independence. For this actions, he was decorated by the Sardinian King Victor Emmanuel II with a Gold Medal of Military Valour,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which he was authorized to accept by Queen Victoria only in 1855.Template:Citation needed In 1858, he retired from the active list with the rank of rear-admiral, becoming vice-admiral in the same year, and admiral in 1863. He retired from the Royal Navy in 1870.

Political career

Wimpole Hall

Hardwicke represented Reigate in the House of Commons between 1831 and 1832 and Cambridgeshire between 1832 and 1834. In 1834, on the death of his uncle, he became the fourth Earl of Hardwicke, and inherited the substantial Wimpole estate in Cambridgeshire. He was a member of Lord Derby's cabinet in 1852 as Postmaster General and as Lord Privy Seal between 1858 and 1859. In 1852 he was sworn of the Privy Council.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Marriage and issue

Hardwicke married the Hon. Susan Liddell, sixth daughter of Thomas Liddell, 1st Baron Ravensworth, in August 1833. They had five sons and three daughters:<ref name="burkes">Template:Cite book</ref>

Hardwicke died in September 1873, aged 74, and was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son, Charles. The Countess of Hardwicke died in November 1886.<ref name="burkes"/>

Illegitimate children

The Earl is alleged to have fathered an illegitimate child, James Pratt, by a local girl named Charlotte Pratt, a servant at his Wimpole Hall home. Charlotte got married in 1849 to Wimpole farmhand, John Rumbold, and the following was noted in Pratt's baptism record from 2 April 1848 (presumably by local genealogist Thomas Peter Roysse Layng, who transcribed the parish registers in 1982):<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

18-year-old servant girl Charlotte gave birth to a son, James Pratt, who was baptised at Wimpole on the 2 April 1848. The father was understood to have been her employer, the 4th Earl of Hardwicke. The following year, the Earl arranged a marriage for Charlotte with one John Rumbold in return for a cottage at Brick End and financial support for the child. John and Charlotte stayed married for 40 years and are buried together in Wimpole Churchyard.

Rev. Alexander Campbell Yorke, Rector of Fowlmere in Cambridgeshire, and a great-nephew of the 4th Earl, recalled Charlotte in his memoir Wimpole As I Knew It — "Charlotte... was a Pratt; and she was a picture. The handsomest woman that I ever remember to have seen. In harvest time to see her swinging along the road with a bundle of corn balanced on her head, both arms akimbo, was a study in colour, figure and poise".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

There is further speculationTemplate:Whom that in 1856 Hardwicke, again, fathered an illegitimate child by a Wimpole Hall servant girl, Daphne Whitby. Daphne gave birth to Charles Whitby on 7 February 1856, his baptism was registered at the estate church, St Andrew's, on 1 June 1856. The entry in the parish register reads... 'Charles Whitby, son of (blank) and Daphne Whitby, spinster of Wimpole parish.'<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Daphne went on to marry widower Job Male, a labourer at Wimpole Hall, in April 1857.

See also

Notes

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References

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Attribution
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