Background
Charles Philip Yorke was born 12 March 1764, the elder son of Charles Yorke by his second wife. His father was the elder brother of Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke and half brother of Philip Yorke, third Earl of Hardwicke.
politician statesman Home Secretary
Charles Philip Yorke was born 12 March 1764, the elder son of Charles Yorke by his second wife. His father was the elder brother of Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke and half brother of Philip Yorke, third Earl of Hardwicke.
Charles was educated at Harrow and at St. John’s College, Cambridge, graduating with an M.A. in 1783. He then trained to be a barrister, and was called to the bar from the Middle Temple in 1787.
Yorke was M.P. for Cambridge from 1790 to 1810, but lost that seat in 1810. He was immediately elected as M.P. for St. Germains, a seat that he exchanged in 1812 for the Liskeard seat, which he held until 1818.
In 1801 he became a member of the Privy Council and accepted the post of secretary at war, which meant presenting army estimates to Parliament, in Henry Addington’s administration (1801—1804). He performed poorly in this office and was transferred to the post of home secretary in August 1803, in which he served until May 1804, when Pitt formed a new ministry.
Thereafter, Yorke spoke frequently in Parliament, defending many of the military expeditions launched by the governments of Lord Grenville (1806-1807), the third Duke of Portland (1807-1809), and Spencer Perceval (1809-1812). Early in 1810, Yorke became one of the tellers of the exchequer, which brought him an income of £2,700 per year, improving his parlous financial situation.
At this time he also enforced the parliamentary standing orders excluding the press from the House of Commons—one of the factors that led the British Forum Debating Society to suggest that the freedom of the press was being attacked. The society’s vigorous campaign against this action helped precipitate the riots on 6 April 1810, during which windows in Yorke’s house were smashed. Later that month Perceval moved Yorke into the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty, a post he held for about 18 months before resigning on the grounds of poor health. Yorke continued to play an active part in the House of Commons for some years, but retired from public life in 1818. He died on 13 March 1834.
In his 28 years in the House of Commons, he became a strong opponent of William Pitt, the Younger, and of equality and emancipation for Catholics.
In 1790 he married Harriott Manningham. The marriage was childless, and after Charles’s death the earldom of Hardwicke passed to Charles Philip Yorke, the son of his younger brother.
