Sir William Yonge, 4th Baronet

Sir William Yonge, 4th Baronet (c. 1693 – 10 August 1755),, of Escot House in the parish of Talaton in Devon, was an English politician.

Origins
He was the son and heir of Sir Walter Yonge, 3rd Baronet, and a great-great-grandson of Walter Yonge (1579–1649), a lawyer, merchant and notable diarist, whose diaries (1604–45) are valuable material for the contemporary history of Great Britain.

Career
In 1722 he was elected to Parliament as member for his family's Rotten Borough of Honiton, in Devon. In the House of Commons he attached himself to the Whigs, and making himself useful to Sir Robert Walpole, was rewarded with a commissionership of the Treasury in 1724. King George II, who conceived a strong antipathy to Sir William, spoke of him as "Stinking Yonge"; but Yonge obtained a commissionership of the Admiralty in 1728, was restored to the Treasury in 1730, and in 1735 became Secretary at War. He distinguished himself especially in his defence of the Government against a hostile motion by Pulteney in 1742. He was created KB in 1725.

Making friends with the Pelhams, he was appointed Vice-Treasurer of Ireland in 1746. Acting on the committee of management for the impeachment of Lord Lovat in 1747, he won the applause of Horace Walpole by moving that prisoners impeached for high treason should be allowed the assistance of counsel. In 1748 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was a founding Governor of the Foundling Hospital, which worked to alleviate the scourge of child abandonment.

He succeeded his father, the 3rd Baronet, in 1731, taking possession of Escot House near Ottery St Mary, Devon, which had been built by his father.

Literary career
He enjoyed some reputation as a versifier, some of his lines being even mistaken for the work of Pope, greatly to the disgust of the latter. He wrote the lyrics incorporated in a comic opera, adapted from Richard Brome's The Jovial Crew, which was produced at the Drury Lane Theatre in 1730 and had a considerable success.

Marriages & progeny
He married in 1716, Mary, the daughter of Samuel Heathcote of Hackney, from whom he was divorced in 1724. By his second wife, Anne Howard, a daughter and coheiress of Thomas Howard, 6th Baron Howard of Effingham, he had two sons and six daughters.

Death
He died at his seat of Escot, near Honiton, on 10 August 1755. he was succeeded in his title and estates by his eldest son Sir George Yonge, 5th Baronet.