Walter Yonge

Walter Yonge was an English lawyer, merchant and diarist. Yonge inherited his fortune from his father John Yonge (d. 1612). His family fortune started to build up from the time of his great-grandfather and namesake, who bought several manors in east Devon. Walter’s grandfather John married the heir of Colyton, and his father was a prominent merchant who engaged in the first trading ventures to Africa.

After Walter inherited his family’s fortune he continued the family practice of purchasing manors, and like his father he was interested in overseas trade. He invested in the Dorchester Company in 1624 to combine profit with consolidating settlements in New England. In 1625 he bought land in trust under a charity which bore his name, for the benefit of the poor of Crediton. The charity operated more than 250 years.

Walter Yonge was also active in public affairs: he was sheriff of Devon in 1628, and quartermaster-general to the Devon militia in 1635; he served as a JP for the county from 1622 until his death. Today he is chiefly remembered for his diary which he kept for most of his life (now in the British Library), which is an important historical record.