Gerald Yorke


Major Gerald Joseph Yorke was an English soldier and writer. He was a Reuters correspondent while in China for two years in the 1930s, and wrote a book China Changes.

Life

Gerald Joseph Yorke was born in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, on 10 December 1901; the second son of Vincent Wodehouse Yorke and Hon. Maud Evelyn Wyndham. He attended Eton College, and then Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he gained a Bachelor of Arts. He joined the Territorial Army and was commissioned in the 21st Armoured Car Company, Tank Corps in 1922, later gaining the rank of Major. He married Angela Vivien Duncan, and the pair had three children: John Sarne, Vincent James and Michael Piers.
The travels of Yorke together with his manservant Li through often bandit-stricken areas were part of China Changes and also commented on by adventurer and Special Correspondent to The Times Peter Fleming in his One's Company, a travelogue of a journey to China in 1933.
Back in Britain at Forthampton Yorke was also the personal representative to the West of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and the author of an original foreword to a secret book on the Kalachakra initiation. Yorke was also a member of the A∴A∴, the magical order established by Aleister Crowley, and towards the end of Crowley's life was known as his chief disciple.

Cricket

He was also a keen cricketer who made a single first-class appearance for Gloucestershire, against Glamorgan during the 1925 season. From the middle order, he scored a duck in the first innings in which he batted, and 6 runs in the second.