William Yonge
Encyclopedia
Sir William Yonge, 4th Baronet KCB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

 FRS (ca. 1693 – 10 August 1755), English politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, was the son of Sir Walter Yonge
Sir Walter Yonge, 3rd Baronet
Sir Walter Yonge, 3rd Baronet of Colliton was the father of Sir William Yonge, 4th Baronet and great-grandson of Walter Yonge of Colyton....

, and great-great-grandson of Walter Yonge of Colyton
Walter Yonge of Colyton
Walter Yonge of Colyton and Devon was an English lawyer, merchant and diarist.-Life:He was the ancestor of Sir George Yonge, and great-great-grandson of John Yonge of Colliton and Devon, a well known merchant in Elizabethan England....

 (1579–1649), whose diaries (1604–45), more especially four volumes now in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 (Add. MSS. 18777–18780), are valuable material for history.

In 1722, William was elected to Parliament as member for Honiton
Honiton (UK Parliament constituency)
Honiton was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Honiton in east Devon, formerly represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It sent members intermittently from 1300, consistently from 1640. It elected two Members of Parliament until it was...

; and he succeeded his father, the third baronet, in 1731. In the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 he attached himself to the Whigs
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...

, and making himself useful to Sir Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....

, was rewarded with a commissionership of the treasury in 1724. George II
George II of Great Britain
George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Archtreasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death.George was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was born and brought up in Northern Germany...

, who conceived a strong antipathy to Sir William, spoke of him as "Stinking Yonge"; but Yonge obtained a commissionership of the admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 in 1728, was restored to the treasury in 1730, and in 1735 became Secretary at War
Secretary at War
The Secretary at War was a political position in the English and later British government, with some responsibility over the administration and organization of the Army, but not over military policy. The Secretary at War ran the War Office. It was occasionally a cabinet level position, although...

. He especially distinguished himself in his defence of the government against a hostile motion by Pulteney
William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath
William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath, PC was an English politician, a Whig, created the first Earl of Bath in 1742 by King George II; he is sometimes stated to have been Prime Minister, for the shortest term ever , though most modern sources reckon that he cannot be considered to have held the...

 in 1742. Making friends with the Pelhams
Henry Pelham
Henry Pelham was a British Whig statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 27 August 1743 until his death in 1754...

, he was appointed vice-treasurer of Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 in 1746; and, acting on the committee of management for the impeachment of Lord Lovat
Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat
Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat , was a Scottish Jacobite and Chief of Clan Fraser, who was famous for his violent feuding and his changes of allegiance. In 1715, he had been a supporter of the House of Hanover, but in 1745 he changed sides and supported the Stuart claim on the crown of Scotland...

 in 1747, he won the applause of Horace Walpole by moving that prisoners impeached for high treason
High treason
High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...

 should be allowed the assistance of counsel. In 1748 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

.

He died at Escott
Stogumber
Stogumber is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, on the eastern flank of the Brendon Hills. Besides Stogumber village itself, the parish includes the hamlets of Ashbeer, Capton, Escott, Higher Vexford, Kingswood, Lower Vellow, Lower Vexford, Preston, and Vellow.-History:The name comes...

, near Honiton, on 10 August 1755. By his second wife, Anne, daughter and coheiress of Thomas, Lord Howard of Effingham, he had two sons and six daughters.

He enjoyed some reputation as a versifier, some of his lines being even mistaken for the work of Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

, greatly to the disgust of the latter; and he wrote the lyrics incorporated in a comic opera, adapted from Richard Brome
Richard Brome
Richard Brome was an English dramatist of the Caroline era.-Life:Virtually nothing is known about Brome's private life. Repeated allusions in contemporary works, like Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, indicate that Brome started out as a servant of Jonson, in some capacity...

's The Jovial Crew, which was produced at Drury Lane
Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....

 in 1730 and had a considerable vogue. He was a founding governor of a charity called the Foundling Hospital
Foundling Hospital
The Foundling Hospital in London, England was founded in 1741 by the philanthropic sea captain Thomas Coram. It was a children's home established for the "education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children." The word "hospital" was used in a more general sense than it is today, simply...

, which worked to alleviate the scourge of child abandonment
Child abandonment
Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting them. Causes include many social and cultural factors as well as mental illness. An abandoned child is called a foundling .-Causes:Poverty is often a...

.
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