Joseph Yorke, 1st Baron Dover

Background

Yorke was the third son of Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, by Margaret, daughter of Charles Cocks. Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, Charles Yorke and James Yorke were his brothers.

Career

Yorke was commissioned an ensign in the 2nd Regiment of Foot Guards on 25 April 1741, and was promoted to lieutenant in the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards on 24 April 1743. Yorke served in the War of the Austrian Succession as an aide-de-camp to the Duke of Cumberland, and fought in the Battle of Fontenoy on 11 May 1745. On 27 May, he became captain and lieutenant-colonel, commanding a company in the 2nd Guards. On 1 November 1749, he was appointed an aide-de-camp to the King, and on 18 March 1755, colonel of the 9th Regiment of Foot. He became a Major-General in 1758, a Lieutenant-General in 1760 and a full General in 1777.

In 1749 he was appointed Secretary to the British Embassy in Paris. In 1751 he became Minister Plenipotentiary to the Dutch Republic, a post he held for the next thirty years. He was involved in the Anglo-Prussian Convention in 1758. His post was upgraded to that of ambassador in 1761. During his tenure, the Dutch were nominally allied with the British, but remained neutral in the Seven Years' War (1756-63), and in the American Revolutionary War(1775-83) initially remained neutral and in 1780 allied with the Americans. Britain had sought to tap the Scots Regiment stationed in the Dutch Republic to fight the Americans, but Yorke's plea was rebuffed and relations between the two nations damaged. As a diplomat of long-standing, Yorke had few Dutch friends and contemporaries noted "he had scorn for the [Dutch] Republic."

He also sat in the House of Commons for East Grinstead between 1751 and 1761, for Dover between 1761 and 1774 and for Grampound between 1774 and 1780. He was appointed a Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath (KB) in 1761 and sworn of the Privy Council in 1768. In 1788 he was raised to the peerage as Lord Dover, Baron of the Town and Port of Dover, in the County of Kent.

Family

Lord Dover married Christiana Charlotte Margaret, daughter of Johan Henrik, Baron de Stöcken, a Danish nobleman, in 1783. They had no children. He died in December 1792, aged 68, when the barony became extinct. Lady Dover only survived her husband by three months and died in March 1793.

Arms

References

References

1. [http://thepeerage.com/p30360.htm#i303600 thepeerage.com General Joseph Yorke, 1st and last Lord Dover, Baron of the Town and Port of Dover]
2. Mackinnon, Daniel. (1833). "Origin and Services of the Coldstream Guards". Richard Bentley.
3. [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/albion/article/lord-bute-newcastle-prussia-and-the-hague-overtures-a-re-examination/7AE4AF099326DEEC194BDC0E00E005B4 Lord Bute, Newcastle, Prussia, and the Hague Overtures: A Re-Examination by Karl W. Schweizer]
4. Schulte Nordholt, Jan Willem, ''The Dutch Republic and American Independence''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1982, 21
5. "leighrayment.com House of Commons: Ealing to Elgin".
6. "leighrayment.com House of Commons: Dover to Dulwich and West Norwood".
7. "leighrayment.com House of Commons: Gorbals to Guildford".
8. {{London Gazette. (9 September 1788)
9. Burke, Bernard. (1869). "A genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the peerage and baronetage of the British Empire". Harrison & sons.