Sir George Yonge, 5th Baronet

{{Short description|British politician and colonial administrator}} {{about||the English cricketer|George Edward Yonge}} {{Distinguish|text=the unrelated Sir George Young, 6th Baronet}} {{Use British English|date=March 2012}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = Sir | name = George Yonge | honorific_suffix = Bt KCB PC FRS | image = George Yonge (cropped).jpg | caption = Engraving by Edmund Scott after a Mather Brown portrait, 1790 | office = Secretary at War | term_start1 = 1782 | term_end1 = 1783 | monarch1 = George III | predecessor1 = The Viscount Sydney | successor1 = Richard FitzPatrick | term_start = 1783 | term_end = 1794 | monarch = George III | predecessor = Richard FitzPatrick | successor = William Windham | office2 = Governor of the Cape Colony | term_start2 = 10 December 1799 | term_end2 = 20 April 1801 | monarch2 = George III | predecessor2 = Francis Dundas | successor2 = Francis Dundas | office3 = Member of Parliament for Honiton | term_start4 = 1754 | term_end4 = 1761 | predecessor4 = Sir William Yonge | successor4 = John Duke | term_start3 = 1763 | term_end3 = 1796 | predecessor3 = Henry Reginald Courtenay | successor3 = George Chambers | alma_mater = University of Leipzig | education = Eton College | spouse = {{marriage|Ann Cleeve|1765}} | father = Sir William Yonge | birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1731|07|17}} | birth_place = Great House, Colyton, Devon, England | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1812|09|25|1731|07|17}} | death_place = Hampton Court Palace, Surrey, England | resting_place = Colyton, Devon, England }}

'''Sir George Yonge, 5th Baronet''', KCB, PC, FRS (17 July 1731 – 25 September 1812) was a British politician and colonial administrator who served as Secretary at War from 1782 to 1783 and again from 1783 to 1794. He succeeded to his father's baronetcy in 1755, which became extinct when he died without children. Yonge is remembered by, among other things, the name of Yonge Street, a principal road in what is now Toronto, Canada, so named in 1793 by the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe.

==Life and career== [[File:Escot Talaton Devon ByRevJohnSwete 1794.jpg|thumb|Escot House in 1794]] thumb|Arms of Yonge: ''Ermine, on a bend cotised sable three griffin's heads erased or'' Yonge was born in 1731<ref>Other sources give 1732: {{cite journal|last=Scadding|first=Henry|title=Yonge Street and Dundas Street: The Men after whom they were named|journal=The Canadian Journal of Science, Literature and History|date=January 1878|volume=15|issue=8|page=616|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/96851#page/596/mode/1up|access-date=6 May 2013}}</ref> at Great House in the parish of Colyton, Devon, the son and heir of Sir William Yonge, 4th Baronet by his second wife Ann Howard. He had a stepbrother, Walter Yonge, from his father's first wife Mary Heathcote.

He was educated at Eton College and then at the University of Leipzig.<ref name="edrh">{{Cite web|url=https://edrh.rhpl.richmondhill.on.ca//default.asp?ID=s1.4|title=Early Days in Richmond Hill: A History of the Community to 1930 : electronic edition. : The Road through Richmond Hill|website=edrh.rhpl.richmondhill.on.ca}}</ref> He served as a Member of Parliament for his family's Rotten Borough of Honiton, Devon, from 1754 to 1761 and again from 1763 to 1796. He was quoted to have often said that he had inherited £80,000 from his father, acquired another £80,000 when he married and £80,000 from Parliament but Honiton had "swallowed it all," This was due to the huge briberies which were commonplace to influence the electorate in rotten borough elections of the time. Yonge was appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1782, and acted as Governor of the Cape Colony for a short period from 1799 to 1801. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1784 <ref>{{cite web | url = http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=2&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27yonge%27%29| title = Library and Archive catalogue| publisher = Royal Society|access-date = 2012-02-27}}</ref> and was invested as a Knight of the Bath in 1788.

In 1755, he inherited Escot House near Ottery St Mary, Devon, on the death of his father. In 1794, he sold it for £26,000 to Sir John Kennaway, 1st Baronet, under whose occupancy it burnt down in 1808.

When Yonge died, indebted, on 25 September 1812 at Hampton Court, the baronetcy died with him.<ref name="edrh"/> Initially he was interred at the place of his death but his remains were later exhumed and transported by sea to be laid to rest in the family crypt in the parish of Colyton. The re-burial was reputed to have taken place by night in fear that his creditors may seize the body.

==Family== Yonge married Ann Cleeve, daughter and sole heir of Bourchier Cleeve, on 10 July 1765.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Namier|first1=Lewis|title=The House of Commons 1754-1790|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Taw7DVGrbRcC|date=1985|publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=9780436304200}}</ref> Yonge was then 34 years old and Ann 20 or perhaps just 21. Ann's father, two days before his death, changed his will<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D469917|title=Catalogue description Will of Bourchier Cleeve of Footscray Place, Kent|date=17 March 1760|via=National Archive of the UK}}</ref><ref name="will">{{Cite web|url=https://village.eversholt.org.uk/eversholt-history/people/anne-amelia-cleeve/bourchier-cleeve/|title=Bourchier Cleeve|date=11 August 2017}}</ref> to place restrictions on Ann's inheritance should she marry someone whom her mother deemed inappropriate. Whether this occurred is not clear.

Ann had no children. She died at Hampton on 7 January 1833.<ref>{{cite web|title=Morning Post|url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results/1833-01-01/1833-01-31?basicsearch=%2byonge&freesearch=yonge&exactsearch=true&retrievecountrycounts=false&sortorder=dayearly|date=1833-01-15}}</ref>

==Legacy== [[File:YongeWellesleyView.jpg|thumb|right|Yonge Street, Toronto]] Yonge was considered an expert on Roman roads: 'He was a man of letters, an F.R.S., and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, to which he communicated an excellent memoir on the subject of Roman roads and camps, in connection with some discoveries that had been made at Mansfield, in Nottinghamshire, and hence the peculiar fitness of naming Yonge Street after him, it being precisely such a road, and adapted to similar uses, as those he had been engaged in examining.<ref>{{cite book |title=Engineering |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZJhDAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA389 |year=1879 |publisher=Office for Advertisements and Publication |page=389}}</ref>

Yonge Street, the main north–south street of Toronto, was built between 1795 and 1796 from Eglinton Avenue to Lake Simcoe. Later the road was extended south to Bloor Street and still later, south to Lake Ontario. Yonge Mills Road and Townline Road Escott Yonge in Front of Yonge Township in Mallorytown, Ontario are named for him as well.

==References== {{Rayment-bt|date=March 2012}}

==External links== *{{cite DNB|wstitle=Yonge, George}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070312212255/http://www.ourroots.ca/e/toc.aspx?id=2559 Yonge Street and Dundas Street : the men after whom they were named : a paper from the Canadian journal of literature, science and history. Henry Scadding]

{{S-start}} {{S-par|gb}} {{S-bef| before = Sir William Yonge, Bt John Heath }} {{S-ttl| title = Member of Parliament for Honiton | with = Henry Reginald Courtenay | years = 1754–1761 }} {{S-aft| after = Henry Reginald Courtenay John Duke }}

{{S-bef| before = Henry Reginald Courtenay John Duke }} {{S-ttl| title = Member of Parliament for Honiton | with = John Duke 1763–1768 | with2 = Brass Crosby 1768–1774 | with3 = Laurence Cox 1774–1780 | with4 = Alexander Macleod 1780–1781 | with5 = Jacob Wilkinson 1781–1784 | with6 = Sir George Collier 1784–1790 | with7 = George Templer 1790–1796 | years = 1763–1796 }} {{S-aft| after = George Chambers George Shum }}

{{S-bef| before = George Hardinge Charles Williams-Wynn }} {{S-ttl| title = Member of Parliament for Old Sarum | with = George Hardinge | years = 1799–1801 }} {{s-aft| after = Parliament of the United Kingdom }} {{s-par|uk}} {{s-bef| before = Parliament of Great Britain }} {{s-ttl| title = Member of Parliament for Old Sarum | with = George Hardinge | years = 1801 }} {{S-aft| after = George Hardinge John Horne Tooke }}

{{S-off}} {{Succession box | title=Secretary at War | after=Richard Fitzpatrick | before=Thomas Townshend | years=1782–1783}} {{Succession box | title=Secretary at War | before=Richard Fitzpatrick | after=William Windham | years=1783–1794}} {{Succession box | title=Master of the Mint | before=The Marquess Townshend | after=Lord Hawkesbury | years=1794–1799}}

{{S-gov}} {{Succession box | before=Francis Dundas, ''acting'' | title=Governor of the Cape Colony | years=1799–1801 | after=Francis Dundas, ''acting''}}

{{S-reg|en-bt}} {{S-bef|before=William Yonge}} {{S-ttl|title=Baronet '''(of Culliton)''' | years=1755–1812}} {{S-non|reason=Extinct}} {{S-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yonge, George, 5th Baronet}} Category:1731 births Category:1812 deaths Category:People educated at Eton College Category:Leipzig University alumni Category:Baronets in the Baronetage of England Category:British MPs 1754–1761 Category:British MPs 1761–1768 Category:British MPs 1768–1774 Category:British MPs 1774–1780 Category:British MPs 1780–1784 Category:British MPs 1784–1790 Category:British MPs 1790–1796 Category:British MPs 1796–1800 Category:Governors of the Cape Colony Category:Knights Companion of the Order of the Bath Category:Lords of the Admiralty Category:Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Honiton Category:Members of the Privy Council of Great Britain Category:Masters of the Mint Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Old Sarum Category:UK MPs 1801–1802 Category:British fellows of the Royal Society