ABSTRACT
Yorke’s family immigrated to England and represent a transatlantic family of the time. This chapter explores Yorke’s early life in England. Educated at Cambridge University, accepted to read for the bar at Inner Temple, and a member of the Whig Club, Yorke fulfilled most criteria required for a gentleman. He inherited property in Antigua on his father’s death and Samuel Redhead’s will forms the basis for a discussion of the legacies of slave ownership on planter’s children.
This chapter considers the development of attitudes to those who were black or mixed race in Georgian England, both among thinkers and writers and in everyday life. It finds that such attitudes were inconsistent. It also considers Yorke’s early politics as something of a reform Whig in Derbyshire and his shift towards radicalism in Derby in 1792. His concomitant and unexplained attempted name change to ‘Yorke’ is explored here. His first political writing contributed to the abolition debate, taking a pro-slavery position. This text reveals Yorke developing a hybrid and confused identity while also rejecting his father. Yorke’s early extra-parliamentary political engagement indicates a desire for an identity in politics.
