General Sir Charles Yorke
(1790-1880)
7 December 1860

Volume 2, page 110, sitting number 1737.

General Sir Charles Yorke K.C.B. is listed in Hart’s Army List (1860) as Colonel of the 33rd (The Duke of Wellington’s) Regiment of Foot. ‘Sir Charles Yorke served in the Peninsula with the 52nd Regt. and was present at the battles of Vimiera, Fuentes d’Onor [sic], Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle (wounded), Nive and Orthes (severely wounded) and at the sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz (wounded), for which he has received the War Medal with ten Clasps. He served also in the Waterloo campaign.’

In his later years, he was Military Secretary to the Duke of Cambridge, Commander-in-Chief of the Army.

General Sir Charles Yorke never married. He died, aged 89, on 20 November 1880 at 27 South Street, Mayfair, leaving an estate valued at £90,000. 

'We regret to announce that Field-Marshal Sir Charles Yorke, G.C.B., Constable of the Tower of London and Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the Tower Hamlets, a Colonel Commandant of the Rifle Brigade, one of the oldest officers in the service, and one of the few remaining survivors of the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns, died at his residence in South Street, Park Lane, at an early hour on Saturday morning, within a few days of the completion of his 90th year. The gallant officer's state of health had for some time past created anxiety among his relatives and friends, so that his end was neither unexpected nor sudden. Indeed, for the last few weeks it had been perceived that his course was almost finished, and, though suffering from no specific disease, that his bodily powers were growing weaker and weaker. He continuaed to decline until between two and three o'clock on Saturday morning, when he quietly passed over to the majority, solely from natural decay. The deceased was a son of the late Col. Yorke, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, by his union with Juliana, a daughter of the late Mr John Dodd, of Swallowfield, Berkshire, and was born in December, 1790. He was educated at Winchester College School, and entered the Army on Jan. 22, 1807. He was created a Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1856, as a reward for his distinguished services, advanced in 1861 to the dignity of Grand Cross, and upon the official celebration of her Majesty's birthday, in 1877, was gazetted to the exalted rank of Field-Marshal' (Shepton Mallet Journal, 26 November 1880).